


Kill Switch

by Todesfuge



Series: Be Here Now Universe [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Cancer, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Trauma, Mental Anguish, Mind Games, Near Death Experience, PTSD, Slash, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 09:22:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 87,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Todesfuge/pseuds/Todesfuge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, and Mycroft Holmes had never been under the illusion that they'd beaten Moriarty at his games, but the uneasy truce that had been struck had become a fairly comfortable place. That is until strange reports start to reach Whitehall, a friend falls ill, and John notices changes in Sherlock that he can't begin to explain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's Note:** There are character deaths in here, but there are **no MAJOR character deaths.**

_My only advice is to not to go away.  
Or, go away. Most_

_Of my decisions have been wrong._

_When I wake, I lift cold water  
To my face. I close my eyes._

_A body wishes to be held, & held, & what  
Can you do about that?_

\-- From “In the City of Light,” Larry Levis

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

John Watson was running.

While this shouldn’t have seemed like a remarkable occurrence, him being a grown man, a former Army officer, and a combat veteran in two separate instances (only one of which he could speak freely about) – it had been so long since he’d been able to truly open up and just _go_ like this without hampering him with stiffness or pain that it nearly brought him to tears.

“Come on, John!” Sherlock called from in front of him, his thin dark form flying ahead of him, the early summer day making it too warm for his usual long coat.

“Right behind!” John said, and the words filled up his chest with a thrill he hadn’t felt in what felt like a lifetime. “Don’t wait!”

Somewhere in the maze of streets ahead, John could hear the crashing of bins as George Weston, the man they were pursuing, fled. Panic and fatigue were making Weston more and more clumsy. He’d knocked someone down, and the person was shouting after him.

Sherlock was rounding the next corner, yelling “keep going!” over his shoulder, and John skid around the corner to see Sherlock shinnying up a fire escape like a £1200-suit wearing spider monkey. He immediately realized Sherlock intended for John to continue the pursuit around the building, allowing Weston to believe they were still close behind, allowing Sherlock to cut him off on the other side.

John kept up the pace, Sherlock clamoring behind, and he heard another crash from ahead, someone yelling “Oi!” at the top of their lungs, then a string of obscenities.

_Closer…closer…_

Around the next corner, John could see Weston now and his scrabbling, desperate gait as he threw himself forward. Just at the bottom of the fire escape, John expected Sherlock to appear, dropping from the rickety landing to land on the man.

But Sherlock wasn’t there.

As Weston tripped again, crashing into a couple coming out of a shop, bags flying, John dove forward and tackled Weston to the ground. His chest protested a bit as they landed hard, but John didn’t care. It felt _good_ in a way he should probably be vaguely concerned about.

“Get off, you bastard!” Weston was shouting as John wrestled Weston onto his belly, his knee digging into the small of the other man’s back. Weston screamed in pain with the high-pitched squeal of a sow.

John had a pair of handcuffs Sherlock had nicked off Lestrade ages ago, and he reached into his jacket to pull them out, wrenching Weston’s arm back to slap it on. Weston was continuing the insults to his lineage, his appearance, his penis size, as he managed to get the other arm up and Weston’s arms secured behind his back.

“Just lie there like a good boy and wait for the Yard to come,” John said over the sound of sirens approaching, his breathing heavy. He pushed himself to his feet, spinning around to the fire escape at the sound of someone coming down.

Sherlock was dropping back down to the ground, moving a little stiffly, his eyes first on Weston then on John with some mixture of guilt and deep relief.

“Are you all right?” Sherlock asked, his voice hoarse. He was pulling in huge lungfuls of air.

“Yeah, fine,” John replied, nodding. “What kept you?”

Sherlock’s face was flushed, color high on his cheeks, but his lips were the faintest pink, almost too pale. His dark hair, longer now that it had been since John had known him, was wild around his face.

“A grate was loose,” he replied. “I took a bad step and fell.”

A year ago, John would have taken the opportunity to get in a dig, something incredulous about Sherlock with his long legs and his ability to deduce the age of the grate long before he’d even come close to falling over it.

But the past few months had slowly bled that sort of reaction from John. Since James Moriarty’s “games” all those months ago, Sherlock had subtly changed in a dozen small ways, one of them being that he tended to show some cracks in the air of infallibility he had wrapped himself in.

It wasn’t that John was complaining about the change, particularly since much of what he was seeing in Sherlock was what he would consider good. Sherlock was more cordial (even if he sometimes still had to put it on a bit), he was less prone to the wild swings of temper and mood, and he’d learned at some point how to actually be a decent friend to people _besides_ John. Lestrade had mentioned just the other day that he’d never realized Sherlock had an actual sense of humor or could genuinely _laugh._

But he did. Around others besides John, who had known that side of him in their private life for some time. Sure, it was often at things that Sherlock probably shouldn’t find quite so amusing, but laugh he did.

And other parts of it – such as Sherlock’s remarkable, often exhaustive, dedication to John as a lover – well, John was certainly not going to complain about _that_.

But there were other things that had changed in Sherlock that pricked the back of John’s mind with something like concern. He slept more, and much more soundly. And though never interested in eating much (particularly on cases), Sherlock seemed to have lost interest in eating _anything_ as of late. Already rail-thin, he’d lost weight, the buttons of his tight shirts not even pulling in their holes since late Spring.

And things like what had just happened in the chase were beginning to occur with something akin to regularity. John actually keeping up with him in a chase? Sherlock – graceful as a gymnast – falling over a grate badly enough to have missed the end of the pursuit?

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock said into the beat of silence, gracing him with one of these new and easy apologies. Something of what John was thinking must have shown on his face.

“No, it’s fine,” John hurried to say, shaking the apology off. “Are you okay?”

Sherlock nodded, pulling in deep breaths still, one of his hands on the center of his chest. “Of course, yes. Just…knocked the wind from me.”

_What…? Okay…_

John licked his lips, taking a step toward him. “Sherlock—“

“John,” Sherlock cut in, raising a calming hand toward him as the sirens reached the end of the street. “I’m fine. Really. Let it go.”

The police cars were coming down the alley now, ending the moment before John could dwell on it much more. Sherlock seemed relieved to see Lestrade coming out of the passenger side of the one in the lead so that he could turn from John and go to him.

 _Right._ Pique and something like dread rose in John. They weren’t done with this conversation, John thought, following him. Not by a long shot.

 

**

Weston was a garden-variety murderer, a hunk of a man with little finesse other than an ability to mix poisons from a recipe involving a few household chemicals that he’d found on the Internet. Sherlock had isolated the poison from the bodies in the morgue in an afternoon, and when they’d confronted Weston with the results, he’d taken off.

But not before knocking Sherlock into John, sending them both into a wall of bookcases, one of them cracking at its middle and sending a heavy batch of ledgers down on top of them. It was this that had given Weston enough of a head start to even make the chase a challenge at all.

As far as their cases went, it got fairly low marks. But it was on the tail of two that had been quite dangerous – one involving an international ring of smugglers and another a serial killer who had hung around long enough to make the good people of Brighton good and afraid. So the ease of it had been welcome in a way.

But there in the back of the cab, both of them heading back to Baker Street, John regretted that they’d taken this one at all.

Sherlock was looking out the window, aware that John was glancing at him a bit too much. He tolerated it for a long time before he said:

“I said I was fine.” There was something peeved rumbling in it.

“I know you did,” John said softly.

Sherlock looked back him now, clearly forcing a small smile on his lips. “When we get home, I’d be happy to demonstrate just _how_ fine.” He reached across the space between them and ran the back of just his index finger along the side of John’s thigh.

“Not going to work this time,” John replied under his breath, his eyes on the back of the cabbie’s head. He was listening to the news and paid them no mind. Sherlock saw this and his hand crept up, long fingers curving over the top of John's leg and settling on the inside of his thigh.

“Hmm.”

“Nope.” John shook his head, but he was wavering, looking down at Sherlock’s elegant hand.

“Oh, I think it will,” Sherlock said, his voice dropping to an unholy register as his hand moved north…

 _Damn you…_ John thought before he had to close his eyes.

 

**

“Wait…wait…”

John pushed back against Sherlock’s chest, against the arms tight around own chest and back, so he could reach down and tear his knit vest over his head. The motion also pushed Sherlock’s mouth from his, Sherlock’s hands going roughly to the buttons on John’s shirt as Sherlock looked into his face with hooded eyes.

They were breathing hard already, desperate for contact from the instant they’d come into the flat, slamming the door closed and immediately pulling each other in tight. John was nearly startled with the force with which Sherlock found his mouth, nipping John’s bottom lip in that way that always sent a groan from John’s throat.

“Ah, you’re a bad man,” he breathed, grasping at Sherlock’s waist, going for the jacket’s button and pushing his arms inside. Then John backed Sherlock up until they stood in front of the couch, knocking the wire bowl of apples off the table with his knee as they went.

“Come on,” Sherlock whispered as John dropped the vest beside the coffee table. “Come on…”

And just the sound of that husking out of Sherlock was enough to make John hard enough to nearly weep.

Sherlock’s hands moved from John’s now-open shirt to his belt. Sherlock’s shirt was already open, John having worked it open as they’d kissed. Sherlock got the belt open, then the button fly, fingers teasing on the front of his pants.

John moaned and went back to his mouth, their tongues meeting before their lips. The kiss that followed was long and deep.

“Oh God, _off,_ ” John said, undoing the dual buttons of Sherlock’s dark trousers, pushing them and his pants down at once. Sherlock stumbled out of his shoes, a deep laugh bubbling from his chest as he helped John divest them both of the last of their clothes.

He was still laughing when John put him on his back on the couch, Sherlock’s legs opening and hitching up on John’s hips. His feet – still clad in socks – rubbed against the backs of John’s thigh.

“Nope, nope,” John said, mock-stern, reaching back and grasping one sock by the toe. “I draw the line at fucking a man in socks…”

They burst out laughing as the socks winged toward the center of the room, then John was moving to bury his face in the juncture of Sherlock’s shoulder and throat. Sherlock’s arms went around his back, thighs squeezing in. When John’s tongue began a slow exploration of the salty skin, the laughs waned into heavy breath.

John leaned up, his hands on either side of Sherlock’s head. He shifted his hips, biting his lip, his eyes locked with Sherlock’s, watching his face.

“Yeah?” he whispered, hips giving a gentle thrust.

“Mmm…yes,” Sherlock replied hoarsely, eyes closing, chin coming up and a smile curling his lips. John loved watching his face as it changed, opening, unguarded in a way that John knew only he got to see, Sherlock’s eyes opening again to meet his gaze. He returned the look, hoping everything he felt was in it.

Their pace notched down, going intense and deep. John leaned down and found Sherlock’s mouth again, his hips sliding, Sherlock’s answering, strong hands going to curve around John’s hips, pushing him down.

It was long and quiet and slow, and by the time it was over, they were breathless and drenched with sweat. Sherlock trembled beneath John as he came, hands gripping John’s ribs, teeth against the ruddy skin just above the scar on John’s shoulder, chest heaving. John watched him, feeling Sherlock shaking through it, for as long he could before his body surged. A cry jerked from him on one last hard thrust, hands cradling Sherlock’s head against his own.

“Ah Jesus…love you…I…please…love…” He knew he was babbling. He didn’t care.

Sherlock’s hand was smoothing up the back of his head, mussing his wet hair to spikes as John slowly came back himself.

“Yes,” Sherlock murmured, and John understood. Yes. To all of this.

They stayed that way for a long time, forehead to forehead.

Finally, John shifted to the side, his legs between Sherlock’s body and the couch’s back, his chest still draped across Sherlock, head resting beneath his chin. Sherlock was limp beneath him, so tired his fingers had a hard time keeping their rhythm of slow circles on John’s back. John’s hand curled in his dark curls, gently massaging his crown.

The vision of Sherlock dropping down from the fire escape, hand on the center of his chest, the paleness of his face and lips, floated back.

“We’re still going to have that conversation, you know,” he said softly, eyes opening.

“Hmm…what conversation?” Sherlock mumbled, sleep-drunk.

John touched his lips to Sherlock’s jaw. “That one you don’t want to have,” he whispered.

“Mmm...” Sherlock replied softly. “….’kay.” He was already half asleep.

John smiled against him, reaching for the dark throw tossed over the couch’s back. He pulled it over them, tucking his face against Sherlock’s throat.

For the moment, he supposed it could wait.

 

**

They ended up sleeping most of the night that way, though around 3:00, John woke feeling sticky and cold and uncomfortable on the couch’s worn leather and roused Sherlock enough for them to move down the hall.

Sherlock standing at the kitchen sink, gulping down a glass of water in the nude while silhouetted by the counter light, had been enough for a quick second go in the shower, and then they were in bed beneath the good, worn sheets, John on his back this time and Sherlock on his side, his arm draped across John’s waist.

They slept. John dreamt about deserts, flying high over them, a dog’s warm body beneath his hand. When he awoke, his body felt warm and sated and good. Sherlock was still asleep, facing the wall on his side, his breathing deep and steady. His hair was still wet, slick against the pillowcase and leaving a dark stain there.

Or was it? John leaned in, carefully touching Sherlock’s back and finding it sweat-slicked. His face was dotted with it, hair stuck to his brow and neck, his arms beaded.

John’s brow creased down. It wasn’t _that_ warm in the flat, and the blanket and sheet were already down to Sherlock’s waist. John peeled back the cotton blanket just in case he was overly warm, then slid his palm carefully onto Sherlock’s forehead.

Fever? But Sherlock was so hot, it was hard to be certain.

John pursed his lips, determined, blew out a breath. For now, he would let Sherlock sleep. He slid carefully out of the bed and went to the wardrobe to dress.

While the kettle boiled, he cleaned up the flat, couch put to rights (he’d need to do laundry later), clothes gathered, even the two errant socks that had found their way all the way to the fireplace. He had a cup of tea himself, checked the provisions for something for breakfast. A lot of heavy food (bacon, eggs), but probably not anything Sherlock would be keen to eat.

 _Scones,_ John decided. Sherlock would usually eat a scone, and they needed newspapers anyway. He grabbed his keys and headed out of the flat.

It was a nice morning, early still, just after 9:00, some sun but clearly the threat of rain off in the distance. Plenty of time for John to make it to the bakery they both liked that fronted the park, to hit the newsstand the street over on the way back. Plenty of time to use the walk to outline his plan for his discussion with Sherlock, to rehearse some ease into what he was going to say about—

Plenty of time, except that he apparently wouldn’t be doing any of that. A black sedan had sidled up next to him on the sidewalk with the purr of an expensive engine and a power window. John stopped, turned, saw the face of Mycroft Holmes appearing as the heavily tinted window came down.

“John,” Mycroft said, a tense smile on his face.

John looked back, his shoulders falling a bit. “Mycroft,” he replied, giving him a nod and a wane smile. “I was just on my way for breakfast.”

“I’d be pleased to offer you a lift while we speak,” Mycroft said, and the car stopped, the driver getting out to open the opposite passenger door, his bored eyes taking in John with a glance.

John felt concern coming over him. It had been awhile since he’d been given one of Mycroft’s “lifts,” particularly since they saw each other once a month now for the intensely awkward dinners Sherlock and Mycroft were attempting since Christmas.

And black sedans drifting up had never been what he would call an omen of good things.

“Yeah, okay,” John said, swallowing the worry down. He went around the car and got in, the driver sealing the door behind him. No one asked him where he wanted to go. They just were off.

John waited, there in the cool interior that smelled like tea and leather and Mycroft’s insanely elegant brand of aftershave. It was like the man carried the veneer of Whitehall on his person everywhere he went.

“I trust you are well,” Mycroft said as they went.

“Good, yeah,” John replied, nodding. “You?”

“Well, thank you for your concern.” The social niceties were paining him. “And my brother?”

The last thing John wanted was Mycroft involved in this right now. _The last thing._ It was the surest way to shut Sherlock down in talking about it, no matter how much of a truce the two had struck.

“He’s fine, doing well,” John said, nodding perhaps a bit too eagerly. Mycroft’s raised brow told him that, but he didn’t push. John was grateful for that.

“I require a medical opinion,” Mycroft said instead, stoking John’s interest.

“Oh?” he replied. “For…yourself?”

Mycroft shook his head. “No. It concerns a mutual acquaintance, I’m afraid. I’ve been forced to recall Mr. Brennan from an assignment abroad because of health concerns.”

“Iarla’s ill?” John replied. “What’s happened? An accident?”

Mycroft shook his head again. “No, there are actually some issues with diagnosing the problem. He began showing signs of fatigue a month or so ago, apparently, but paid it no mind. He’s eager to please in his new position, as you can imagine, so he was negligent about discussing the early symptoms of…whatever is afflicting him.”

John nodded. “What else?”

“He began bruising easily, experiencing bleeding in his mouth. Opportunistic infections in his skin, one quite serious. Sensitivity in his abdomen and loss of appetite. Pain in his pelvis that has hindered his gait.”

John nodded again. “Sounds like…leukemia. Has he been tested for it?”

“Yes,” Mycroft said, “and it does show some similarities to that condition, but the physicians treating him say it appears much more involved in that. They have not seen anything quite like it, I’m told, which is naturally cause for concern.”

John swallowed. _Shit._

“Well, I’m happy to have a look at the reports and to examine him, of course. But I’m not really a researcher—“

“Let me ask you again, John,” Mycroft cut in evenly, meeting John’s eyes. “How is my brother?”

John met his eyes, seeing what he did not want to see. The rare look of Mycroft Holmes worried he was out of his league.

“He’s…” John broke the gaze, looking out the window for a beat. “I’m not sure how he is.” He looked back at Mycroft. “But I _will_ be finding out.”

Mycroft nodded. “Perhaps you can persuade him to visit Iarla in hospital at King Edward’s. I can have them prepared for an exam—“

“No, don’t do that,” John said instantly. “If he thinks he’s being ambushed, you know how he’ll respond. Visiting Iarla is fine, but…” He blew out a frustrated breath. “Let me handle this in my own way, all right? Let’s leave the heavier guns as a last resort.”

Mycroft nodded, his hands closing on his own thin knees. For Mycroft, this was akin to a tantrum. “As you wish,” he said, his voice controlled. “You are clearly better at handling my brother than…well, than anyone, I think. I will leave it to your discretion.”

 _For now._ He didn’t say it, but it was hanging there nevertheless.

“Thank you,” John said, and he meant it. He shifted in the seat, checking where they were in relation to the flat. Close, he noted. “Now I need—“

But Mycroft cut him off by reaching to the floor of the car. He brought out a brown bag, carefully folded, and two newspapers.

“Scones,” he said, handing the bag and papers over.

John gaped. “How did you--?”

Mycroft smiled faintly. “Oh, I know my brother well, John, even if it pains him at times to accept this fact. And even as a child – sick, well, angry – he would _always_ take a scone.”

A smile creased John’s lips and he realized just how grateful he was for the man as they pulled onto Baker Street and he took the papers and the bag.

 

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER TWO.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

 

The warm smell of Sherlock’s soap was the first indication John had that Sherlock was awake. But that combined with the silence he encountered as he came up the stairs also told him that Sherlock was no longer _in_ the flat. 

He heaved a sigh as he reached the living room, newspapers and keys and bag of scones dropping onto the table beside the trailing cord of Sherlock’s phone charger. Reaching into his pocket, he checked his phone. No texts. He began his slow tap on the keyboard.

 _Where are you?_ Send.

A pause. _Cab on the way to The City. Lestrade. Apparent suicide. –SH_

 _Can’t go one day without you?_ He stabbed the “send” button hard.

_Clearly. Need you here. – SH_

He sighed again, tapped back. _You’ll have sussed it out by the time I get there and you know it._ Send. He meant for it to sound teasing, he thought, but as the progress bar marked it “sent,” he realized it sounded rather pouty instead.

 _Need you here. – SH_

He pursed his lips. A strange thing for Sherlock to say like that, and it sent a prickle of something like concern up the back of his neck.

He grabbed his keys and went back the way he’d come.

It took him 15 minutes to hail a cab, a frustrating affair that had forced him to walk toward the park, scanning the streets and texting Sherlock as he went.

 _Where?_ Send.

Sherlock sent him the address. Still no cabs. He kept walking. Finally, he licked his lips and tapped away again.

 _You okay?_ Send.

A beat. Then: _Hovering. Annoying. – SH_

The peevishness was back. It made John somehow feel better.

He finally found a sleepy-looking cabbie coming out of a shop with a cup of tea in a paper cup and was opening the cab door to get in before the man had gotten himself settled in.

“All right, mate, where’s the bloody fire?” he said, fussing with the cup holder and the meter. 

“Sorry,” he said quickly, a reflex, then gave him the address. They pulled away, John’s hand covering the tight line of his mouth. He stared out the window, watching the city stream by. 

Traffic was starting to clog the streets, making it slow going. Even the cabbie began to grumble as two buses jockeyed for position at an intersection, effectively stopping traffic as they worked it out. 

They’d just gotten themselves sorted when John’s phone buzzed in his hand, vibrating, ringing on mute. John glanced down, irritated at the break in his brooding. It wouldn’t be Sherlock. Sherlock never called, and if it wasn’t him, well then, John—

Lestrade’s name and number on the caller ID. He snatched it up and answered.

“Yeah Greg?”

“Where are you?” Something was wrong. He knew that tone in Lestrade’s voice. And no obscenities, so not impatience. Something else.

“On my way. What’s—“

“John, Sherlock’s collapsed.”

There it was. The hammer he’d been sitting in the shadow of finally coming down. Traffic chose that moment to stop again, and he started fumbling for his wallet.

Lestrade was still talking. “I’ve got an ambulance on the way so you might need to meet him at hospital if you’re not—“

“No,” he cut in, terse. “Don’t move him without me. There in five.” 

He slammed the phone closed, cutting Greg off, stuffed it into his jacket pocket as the car edged forward. “No, stop,” he called to the cabbie. “Stop right here!”

The cabbie glanced back at him. “But it’s just ‘round the corner, for the love of—“

“Stop!” John shouted, and the man pulled the car against the curb, jerking to a halt. John threw the money at him and was out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

He could feel the surge of adrenaline as the street opened up before him, the roar of it in his ears, the pound of his heart in anticipation of the flight. 

He ran.

It was starkly familiar, this feeling, his feet tapping out a staccato rhythm on the sidewalk, weaving in and out of the other pedestrians, their faces going from the blandness of morning to wide-eyed as he pushed past them. He could feel the crease of his forehead, the urgency there, that they saw in him. He didn’t even apologize as he knocked shoulders with a man coming out of a shop. 

He hit the corner, looked down both directions and saw the cluster of flashing lights of Lestrade’s homicide team. No ambulance, but he could hear sirens far off in the distance. He sped up.

One of Lestrade’s men was guarding the yellow taped area, and he held his hands up to John as he approached. A few yards behind, John could see a cluster of people crouched over something, and he recognized the salt-and-pepper of Lestrade’s head leaned down close to the ground.

“Oi!” the officer at the tape called as John quickened his pace rather than slowing. 

“I’m a doctor, let me come through,” John blurted, breathless, coming to an abrupt halt as the man’s hands hit his shoulders. 

_I’m a doctor let me come through…_ He felt his breath leave him. The blow of that particular memory nearly doubled him over. 

But that was also when John saw Lestrade lean up at the sound of his voice, and then he could see Sherlock’s hand curled palm-up on the sidewalk and the thin line of his arm, Sherlock’s bone-white cheek and temple in Lestrade’s hand as the older man cradled it to keep Sherlock’s head off the hard ground. 

And blood. Blood staining the sleeve of Lestrade’s crisp shirt.

“Let him through, Jenkins!” Lestrade called, locking eyes with John and swallowing. John was under the tape and at his side in an instant. 

The other two people around Sherlock – Kelso (Anderson’s replacement) and Nickels – leaned back as John moved to his knees beside Lestrade, who was edging over to give John his place at Sherlock’s head. Lestrade didn’t move his hand. John’s were busy cupping Sherlock’s face as he leaned in close.

“Hey…” he called gently. Sherlock’s eyes lolled beneath his long lashes toward John’s voice. There was a touch of blood on his lips, and John wiped at it.

“It’s nothing,” Lestrade said quickly. “He must have bitten his tongue when he fell, is all.”

“Hey,” John said again. “Sherlock, can you hear me?” 

Sherlock’s gaze finally found his as he swallowed, blinked slowly. He gave a tiny nod. John gave him a weak smile in return, brushed Sherlock’s face with this thumb. 

“What happened?” he asked Lestrade quietly, but his tone was tense. He didn’t take his eyes off Sherlock’s.

“Not much to tell that I saw,” the other man said, his voice hedged. “He got here. I met him out here to talk before we went up to the flat. He seemed fine, normal. He looked pale as a sheet, but if I got bloody vexed about that I’d call an ambulance every time I saw him. We started to go toward the building and then I heard him hit the ground behind me.”

“He didn’t say anything before?”

Lestrade jerked his head _no._ “Not a thing. Just…down.” 

John returned his attention to Sherlock, who was lying on his side, knees pulled up toward his belly, arms limp in front of him. Nothing obviously wrong, except his breathing was shallow, fast. 

The most telling sign of trouble was that Sherlock wasn’t trying to speak. No attempt at an explanation, no snapping at John for asking Lestrade these questions instead of him…nothing. 

John returned his gaze to Sherlock’s face where Sherlock’s eyes were still locked with his. Sherlock’s lips, there beside John’s thumb, were tinged a faint blue. His fingers found the pulse in his throat. Too fast.

He glanced at Lestrade’s sleeve. Sherlock’s hair had painted the stains there. Seeing this, he reached down and replaced Lestrade’s hand with his own.

“I think he knocked his head when he hit the sidewalk,” Lestrade said, leaning back a bit now.

Yes, John felt the lump there, the mat of blood. Not too serious, but it showed Sherlock hadn’t been aware enough to break his fall.

The sirens were getting close now, loud, the sound bouncing off the buildings in a strange echoing wail. John blew out a frustrated breath. He wished they’d hurry the hell up. 

“He’s all right, yeah?” Lestrade asked, wiping his hand on his handkerchief and looking down at Sherlock again, then back to John’s face. John heard the worry in his voice.

“He’s not getting enough oxygen,” John replied. “Does anyone here have a unit? Any kind of rescue kit?”

Lestrade looked at Kelso, who was still hovering nearby. John looked up and saw Kelso shake his head.

“Shit,” John said under his breath, keeping his fingers on Sherlock’s pulse. 

“All right, you lot, show’s over. Go see that the ambulance finds its way here.” Lestrade made a shooing motion and the two cleared off. He himself remained close.

Sherlock’s hand was edging toward John’s leg now, fingers brushed the hem of his jeans, shifting one long leg against the sidewalk. 

_Get him talking,_ John thought. It was starting to give him the creeps.

“Sherlock,” he called softly. “Do you remember what happened?” 

Sherlock nodded. “…Fell.” 

John pursed his lips. Not quite _passed out_ , but close enough. He swallowed, pressed on. 

“Do you know what’s wrong?” It was a fair thing to ask. Sherlock would have no doubt been deducing it as he lay there.

But Sherlock just shook his head once. Then, predictably, he breathed. “But I’m…all right.”

The siren wailing close, the ambulance blowing its horn at the corner intersection.

“Yeah, you’re fantastic,” John replied over the sound, mock-irritated, a fond smile curving his lips. “You know what I usually have to do to keep you lying down this long?”

“Ach, Christ, do I need to hear this?” Lestrade groaned, playing along with the levity. He seemed relieved to have something to do. It made John’s smile widen, and Sherlock gave a faint smile as well, his eyes closing for a long beat as he huffed a breath of a laugh.

John stroked his forehead. “The ambulance is on the way. Try to slow down your breathing a bit and take deeper breaths, yeah?” 

Sherlock nodded, closed his eyes, turned his face further into John’s hand. John smoothed a thumb gently down his brow.

The ambulance had finally pushed its way in, the paramedics spilling from the back with their stretcher and bags. Lestrade was waving them over as John leaned up and called “O2” loud and sharp, gesturing to Sherlock as he did. They scrambled to comply. 

Then John crouched over him again. 

“You’re going to be fine,” he murmured close to Sherlock’s ear, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead before everyone was upon them. “I’m right here. And _nothing’s_ going to happen to you.”

 

**

 

_Day. Late-day slanted light. Too warm. Smell of lavender-scented bleach. Stiff wires on his chest (telemetry unit). Oxygen cannula._

Sherlock’s mind was taking inventory of his surroundings even before he’d fully woken, as though his brain were scribbling down a list. 

_Hospital. King Edward’s, from the quiet and the expensive bleach. Dull._

He blew out a slow breath, not yet opening his eyes. There was no reason to. He knew what he’d see – a large, opulent, but empty room. Even with his eyes closed, he could tell that no one was there. 

Sherlock ticked off the next inventory – his body – as he shifted his legs. His head was aching on one side, a fist of pain centered behind a sore knot. The center of his chest had the same dull throbbing it had carried for several weeks now, a sensation that had started to spread below his ribs on the left and to his hips as well. He felt bruised on his shoulder, his back, his hip. There was an IV in the back of his hand, loops of tubing taped down. 

His own pajama bottoms, but a gown up top. _Mrs. Hudson._ Sherlock decided. She’d brought things from the flat. 

This fact and the fading light meant he’d been asleep for some time, which explained why John was not in the room. He’d probably kept a vigil for a bit and then had to eat or rest.

Finally, Sherlock opened his eyes. Just as he thought. King Edward’s. Actual artwork on the walls of the spacious room. Television tastefully hidden in a cabinet on the wall, its doors closed. Cloth chairs. Linoleum that looked like hardwood. One of the top-floor suites.

 _Mycroft._ He sighed. 

He turned his head toward the nightstand, its expensive lamp. There was a note there on a tented piece of thick paper. John’s handwriting.

_Do NOT try to get up. JW._

Sherlock quirked a smile. He got up.

At least as far as the side of the bed, his long legs dangling down. Then the door opened and there was John, all white coat and tired eyes and stethoscope curved in his pocket. He had one of the small iPads in his hand, on which was the grid of Sherlock’s telemetry. Sherlock spied it as John held it up toward his face.

“Right, what part of ‘do not try to get up’ wasn’t clear to the World’s Most Brilliant Git?” 

It was a good try at banter, but Sherlock was already taking in John’s face. His eyes were rimmed red, both from fatigue and upset. The smile he tried for didn’t touch his eyes. 

“Something’s wrong,” Sherlock said. It wasn’t a question. He wasn’t concerned, afraid…nothing. It was a fact. It just _was_.

“Of course something’s wrong,” John replied as he slid the tablet onto the foot of the bed. “You’re in a hospital room—“

“John.” 

John stilled, pursed his lips. He looked down, up again, having a hard time looking into Sherlock’s face. He was only an arm’s length away, but he didn’t come closer. 

Sherlock nodded. John needed to be a doctor for this. He needed the distance.

“We’re not sure yet, okay?” John began. “I want that out up front.”

“Why?” Sherlock replied, his voice edging at the qualification. “Are you worried I’ll become prostrate with fear and grief?” 

But John shook his head, his face hardening a bit. “No,” he said calmly. “I just want things…clear. For both of us.”

That brought Sherlock back a bit. He kept forgetting there were three of them now: himself, John, and _them_. This was serious enough that it was going to be partly about _them._

He blew out a breath. “All right then, it’s clear.”

John nodded. “You collapsed this morning. Do you remember?”

Sherlock nodded, even though what had happened just prior to him seeing Lestrade and John over him was a bit vague. “I recall it, yes.” 

John seemed relieved at this. “Right, well, it happened because you’re hypoxic. Low red blood cell count. You’re also fighting a systemic infection that’s been wearing you down for some time apparently. Your body just finally gave in to it.”

Sherlock nodded. “All right.” His own brain was sifting it all down. “Go on.”

“You—“ John averted his gaze again, swallowed. He couldn’t get it out. But Sherlock’s mind was already parsing it, categorizing...

“Pain in my sternum, now in my hips,” he said, and he could feel his attention turn to the cogs turning in his mind. A hand slid up over the gown below his ribs to the faint, sore bulge there. “Spleen…enlarged.”

John licked his lips, nodded, meeting his eyes. 

Sherlock nodded slowly as well. “Leukemia. Acute.”

John looked up, met his gaze. “It would appear so, yes.” His voice was soft, flat, Doctor with Bad News. “Of some type at least.”

Sherlock’s brow squinted down. “’Of some type?’” he bit out. “You can’t tell? Surely the tests would have told you--“

“Sherlock,” John cut in sharply, then relented, his hand going out toward Sherlock in a calming gesture then falling to his side again. When he spoke, his voice came out soft and serious again. “Whatever this is, Iarla has it too.”

 _Ah._ And that was it. Sherlock’s mouth clamped shut, his chin coming up, his eyes on John’s, which were wide and sad and tinged with the beginnings of what would one day – likely soon – become rage.

“I see.” It was all Sherlock could think to say. 

John nodded. “Yes,” he said, reaching up to rub hard at his brow. “The cells we’re seeing are the same in both of you. He’s…further along in it than you are, it seems. Weaker. More organ involvement. Higher counts. But…it’s the same thing, we think. I’ve been in consult all day with the doctors here treating him. They’re…taking on your case, as well.”

But Sherlock was barely listening at this point, looking at the center of John’s chest. What he was seeing was James Moriarty’s face behind his eyes. James sitting in John’s hospital room in the dim light of the monitors, unbothered, almost…satisfied. James coming to stand in front of Sherlock. 

_Men like us…exceptional moths to exceptional flames…_

“I’d wondered why he acquiesced so easily,” Sherlock said softly. 

John nodded. “Right. Because he…didn’t lose.” His voice nearly vanished by the end of it. Color was rising in his face.

Sherlock met his gaze. “He knew – as we didn’t – that he was still _playing the game._ ” He could feel the adrenaline coming up, his eyes darting as he began to gather himself for the chase. “We have to—“

“No,” John interrupted, loud and sharp, finally taking a step toward Sherlock, his hand out again and coming to rest on Sherlock’s leg. “ _You_ are not doing anything, you understand? We’ve got to get a handle on this right away, do a marrow biopsy, figure out what we’re dealing with.”

He shook his head. “John, I understand your concern, but I need—“

“Sherlock, this will _kill_ you,” John said firmly, though the effect was undermined by the hoarseness of his voice. He reached up and took Sherlock’s head between his hands. “Do you understand me? I don’t know how Moriarty has done this or how it’s working, but looking at what it’s doing to Iarla and what it’s doing to you already—“

“Circumstantial,” Sherlock tried, shaking his head. “There couldn’t possibly be enough data at this point to—“

John shook his head, his fingers tightening, his thumbs brushing at the corners of Sherlock’s eyes. 

“Sherlock, listen to me. You will _die_ from this if we don’t start on it right away.” 

His voice broke on the last, and the tears were finally there, rimming his lower lids. Sherlock leaned forward and took John in his arms, holding him there as John’s arms slid from his head around his shoulders, his cheek pressing into Sherlock’s.

“I’m sorry,” John whispered. “I’m so sorry.” He’d begun to tremble.

“It’s all right,” Sherlock said softly against his temple. John smelled of a laboratory and too much tea, of cortisol and a need for sleep. He leaned back and kissed John’s forehead, the tight line of his lips, holding there until they softened beneath his, some ease seeping in. 

When Sherlock leaned back, he could feel something like fire come in behind his eyes. He could see that John saw it, too as he heaved in a deep, calming breath.

“We will be all right,” Sherlock said, putting everything he had into the words so they sounded strong and sure. He reached up, cradling John’s head between his hands.

John nodded, his gaze skittering down again. “Yes, of course—“

But Sherlock tightened his grip. “We will, John,” he said firmly, and John held his gaze, searching his face. When he nodded this time, there was something determined in his face. They pulled each other into a tight, sure embrace.

“I promise you, John,” Sherlock whispered fiercely. “No matter what he’s done…we’re not finished yet.”

 

**

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER THREE.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

 

Mycroft Holmes was not, generally speaking, a man to be kept waiting. In fact, he was typically the one who arrived late for a meeting, if he arrived late at all. When he did, he was always quick to both attempt to contact the person waiting for him and then to graciously apologize on arrival, regardless of whether his tardiness was due to protecting the Commonwealth or not. 

Rude was, after all, rude, regardless of cause, and one must, in the end, be _civilized._

Perhaps it was this belief that piqued Mycroft first when James Moriarty had still not arrived a full 20 minutes after the scheduled start of their meeting, leaving Mycroft sitting with his driver standing like a statue behind him in the private lounge of the Westin Hotel. 

This, unfortunately, gave him time to recall the past 24 hours, the call from Lestrade reaching him where he’d been sitting with his paper in the Diogenes Club. He’d lifted the phone from the table to stifle the buzz on the wood in the quiet, seen the display, and risen, going into the Stranger’s Room as the call went to voicemail. A text came in before he could finish dialing Lestrade back.

_Sherlock on way to hospital. Call._

He didn’t. Instead, he’d gotten hold of Anthea and told her to contact the emergency dispatcher could divert the ambulance carrying Sherlock (and John, he knew) to King Edward’s. Hanging up with her, he’d summoned his driver, gathered his umbrella and briefcase, and was in the car within precisely five minutes from the time Lestrade had first rung.

In the car, he’d returned Lestrade’s call and gotten the report of what had happened. He had to admit hearing that his brother had collapsed and then had not been able to rise again filled him with dread. 

He beat the ambulance to King Edward’s and was at the A&E when Sherlock was brought in. John had been on one side of the stretcher, his hand on Sherlock’s bicep at the paramedics pushed him into the receiving area. Mycroft had taken Sherlock’s appearance in with a glance: the oxygen mask, the pallor that was white even for Sherlock, and – most telling – the fact that John shook his head when he met Mycroft’s eyes as he brushed by.

“What do you need?” Mycroft called after him.

“ _My_ patient,” John replied crossly, not looking back. “If I need help, I’ll _ask_ for it. And get me some people in the lab.” 

They bumped through the doors and were gone. 

Mycroft stared after for a beat, then took out his phone and took care of the arrangements for John’s credentials and techs for the lab.

Sherlock only regained consciousness once, right before the transfusion John ordered at mid-day. Mycroft had stood on one side of the bed, John on the other, as Sherlock’s head lolled from side to side to take them both in, his mouth moving beneath his oxygen mask. He looked angry, confused, a logical result of his brain not getting the oxygen it was accustomed to.

“You are fine, Sherlock,” Mycroft said to him, though he knew the worry was on his face if not in his voice. Then John had leaned in and told Sherlock to keep resting, that he was doing well. Sherlock shook his head, but otherwise didn’t respond.

When Mycroft got the reports on John and his team’s initial findings – which they’d compared to the results of Iarla’s battery of tests – Mycroft didn’t wait to see Sherlock again. He was on the phone and out the door, texting for a pilot and then beginning the complicated process of contacting James Moriarty for a meeting.

Dublin was getting a healthy dose of rain outside. There was a very old clock ticking in the corner, which was now striking the half-hour of the Westminster chimes. The driver hadn’t so much as shifted as he stood with his arms behind his back. Mycroft held his pocket watch in one hand, rolling it gently like a wheel on his knee, warming the metal. 

In his suit jacket pocket, his phone buzzed with a text. He replaced the watch in its tiny pocket in his waistcoat and drew the phone out, checking the display. 

John’s number. _Sherlock out of biopsy and in recovery. All seems well. Will keep you apprised._

He texted back a thanks, then received a second message a beat later.

_You do the same about you._

Mycroft sighed. The driver behind him was trained in roughly 30 ways to kill with just his bare hands, and there were enough eyes watching the room for more than comfort’s sake. But there was John, worrying over Mycroft anyway. It made Mycroft almost believe he had, in John Watson, a sort of _friend._

He shook his head, a smile brushing his lips as he pushed the phone back down in his inside pocket, then resumed his stillness, staring at the opposite, empty chair. 

Behind him, finally, the door opened. Soft clicks of footsteps (three sets) coming down the marble floor to where he sat. Mycroft heard the driver turn, then turn back, letting him know that James was among the newcomers.

“James. I was beginning to worry.” Mycroft did not turn around as he said it. His voice was formal, flat, and it echoed a bit in the high ceiling.

James Moriarty came around to the chair opposite Mycroft, standing in front of it with his silver-capped cane in his hand. He wore a slate-gray suit, a white shirt so crisp with starch that it looked like it was made of paper, a black tie. His hair – silver, matched by the silver beard – was impeccably placed and then slicked back. And his shark-black eyes were red-rimmed and watery, just his son’s had always been.

Behind him, his own driver (black suit, no hat) and another man whose jacket was so tight that Mycroft could see the bulge of the handgun in the man’s shoulder holster.

 _Crass,_ he thought, then flicked his gaze back to James as the other man began to speak.

“Forgive me, Mycroft,” he said quietly. “But given your short notice for meeting, it was difficult to rearrange my schedule and be certain of the exact timing of the day.” He smiled a stiff smile. “I’m sure you understand.” 

Mycroft felt his eyes narrow a bit, but he gave a glimpse of a smile just the same, angling his head toward the chair. “Please. Sit.” 

He could tell by the look that crossed James’ face – a quick hardening that vanished as fast as it came on – that he had noticed that Mycroft did not accept the apology. James settled himself into the armchair, leaned the cane against the arm, and crossed his legs.

“So,” James said, taking control of things (as his delay had been an attempt at doing, Mycroft knew). “You said you needed to speak to me, Mycroft.” He held his arms open for a beat. “Here I am. Speak.”

Mycroft sat still, his hands on the chair arms now. “It concerns my brother,” he replied. He watched James’ face for reaction, but there was none. Dead-flat calm, on both their faces.

“Sherlock?” James replied, his gaze pinned to Mycroft’s.

“Yes,” Mycroft replied patiently. “I’m afraid he is ill.”

One of James’ brows came up. “Oh?”

“Yes.”

James nodded. “I’m sorry to hear it. I hope it’s nothing too…serious.”

“I’m afraid it is.” Mycroft could feel it now. Heat rising in him. It was creeping into his voice now.

“Oh my,” James said, something saccharine-sweet and condescending in it. “How awful for you, Mycroft. Only family left and all that.” He _tsked_. “I hope there’s something that can be done for him.”

“Is there, James?” Mycroft asked, his voice dropping to a dangerously quiet timbre. His eyes bored into Moriarty’s, his chin coming down. 

James cocked his head to the side an inch. “How on earth would I know, Mycroft?” Something far on the underside of his tone sounded…pleased. Almost amused. “What has this to do with me?”

Mycroft sighed. “James, feigning a lack of knowledge of this only belittles us both. Tell me what you’re after and let us get on with it.”

James leaned back, his hand coming up slowly to cover his chest. “You _wound_ me, Mycroft,” he said, the same strangely entertained tone still just underneath. “You think I have something to do with your brother’s condition? Why on _earth_ would I involve myself in something like that?”

“I think the answer to that is fairly obvious,” Mycroft shot back, a bit louder now. “Let us look at the facts. Sherlock is ill and one of Sherlock’s associates during last year’s…unpleasantness…who was also exposed to the drug that Victor Luong has been concocting – with your aid, might I add – has been diagnosed with the same condition. Given that _coincidence,_ surely you can understand why I would be questioning you about this.”

“No,” Moriarty replied, his voice also rising. “I would think you’d be in Amsterdam talking to Luong if that is the case, not sitting here launching accusations at me.” 

Mycroft’s eyes narrowed. “We both know Luong is little more than a well-dressed thug, James, and he doesn’t have nearly the gray matter to concoct something that could produce the symptoms I’ve seen.” He leaned forward slightly. “Now I ask you again, for the last time, what do you _want_?”

James’ lip curled on one side. Instead of rising to the bait, he leaned back and crossed his legs. “’For the last time’ or what, Mycroft?” he said, and there it was. The low thrum of anger, the challenge. “You do recall to whom you’re speaking, yes?”

“Yes,” Mycroft said instantly. “Do _you?_ ”

They stared at each other. The look in Moriarty’s eyes was dangerous. “I cannot help your brother, Mycroft,” James rumbled into the quiet. 

Mycroft sat back again, his hands on the arms of his chair. “I see,” he said, velvet quiet. “Who then?”

Moriarty gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, I don’t know, Mycroft. I’m sure the poof Watson is giving his condition an admirable _go_.” 

Mycroft shook his head. “Tasteless, James,” he replied. “I expect so much more.”

The laugh vanished. Moriarty’s face hardened again and stayed that way. “Is there anything else?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. He’d reached for his cane. “Are we finished here?”

Mycroft shrugged. “I assume we are,” he replied, and James stood, his driver and bodyguard coming forward. James nodded and started forward, toward the door. As he drew even with his chair, Mycroft spoke. 

“If Sherlock dies, James, and I find evidence that you were involved, I warn you that there will be consequences, and that they will be… _severe._ ” 

Moriarty stopped, looking down. “Don’t threaten me, Mycroft,” he said softly. “You have no idea what you’re inviting.”

Mycroft looked up at him, smiling faintly. “Oh, I do, believe me. But I also wonder if the row you and I have had coming for years now has been avoided for a bit _too_ long. Now might be an appropriate time for us to renegotiate our various…positions. And pushing me where my brother is concerned…” He shook his head, putting on his best regretful face as he stared into Moriarty’s eyes. “It just _won’t do._ ” 

The bodyguards had started eyeing each other, tensing up. James looked at Mycroft, his face flushing. His mouth opened, then closed again. 

_This could begin right here,_ Mycroft thought, somewhat detached from it. He pictured the guns coming out. He pictured—

“Goodbye, Mycroft,” James said, the threat clear in the deep, soft voice. 

“James,” Mycroft replied, breaking his gaze and reaching for his watch, snapping it open to look at the face as James and his entourage withdrew from the room.

**

Night was falling over London, the sky turned purple with the summer gloam. Iarla Brennan sat in his armchair looking out over it, an IV in his hand (fluids, antibiotics), and a nasal cannula hissing faintly in the quiet. 

Beautiful sunset. What was it that colleague of his in Amsterdam had said? Something about beautiful sunsets being the “swan songs of humanity,” the rich colors often due to the build-up of pollution in the nearest layer of atmosphere. 

It seemed fitting as he sat there to think on that. He sighed.

Iarla had only recently been what he would consider “a man of action.” The years before this – as far back as he could remember, in fact, except for a few years playing football – he’d mostly spent his life sitting on his arse with his nose in a book, drinking too much tea and eating little, living a life in his head. He’d been comfortable that way too – too comfortable, he knew now. And maybe that was why, here just a week away from his current life, he already missed it.

It wasn’t that the room wasn’t nice, even luxurious by hospital standards. Mycroft Holmes had seen to it that Iarla was given everything he needed – an e-reader, access to films and television, speakers, a computer. And the Queen herself couldn’t have gotten better care – particularly since this was where she received hers when she needed it. It was more that so many hours sitting in an armchair – unable to do anything _but_ sit in an armchair – was so stifling and dull that it made him afraid.

He had insisted on dressing today, though the nurses had asked him to keep his arms exposed. It made it easier to keep an eye on the IV site, the bruising. So he had padded around the room in his bare feet for a bit in his jeans and a faded Massive Attack T-shirt, his black hair standing up in spikes because he couldn’t be arsed with it when he’d gotten out of the shower.

He ached. He’d been running a fever. He was weak as a new foal and he’d never felt more like something was just fundamentally _not right_ with his body. But he was getting used to all that now. The news of the grim diagnosis was sinking in.

The sun gone now, he rose and went to the loo. On this trip, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the sink and found himself stopping there, staring at his reflection. His skin, beneath the rough dark stubble, was alarming, almost the color of clay. His lips were still faintly blue, even with the oxygen from the tank he dragged around behind him like a wheeled toy from one room to the other. There was a bruise on his neck from God only knew what. Even his eyes looked watered down in their blue. 

That’s how John Watson found him, standing there with the door to the bath open, staring at his reflection. 

“Iarla, you okay?” John asked from the doorway and Iarla glanced at him, then back at the mirror. John had shed the white coat at some point and was down to a brown checked shirt buttoned all the way to the neck, army-green pants, brown shoes with white soles. 

Iarla didn’t look away from the mirror. He leaned closer, in fact, peering at himself.

“Look at me,” he said softly, a sort of wonder in it. “I turned into an old man.”

John came a step closer. “No, you didn’t. You’re just sick.”

But Iarla shook his head. “I’m fucking dying, aren’t it?” 

“Don’t think that,” John said, putting a hand on his arm. “And as you get better, you’ll look like yourself again. I promise.”

Iarla looked at him, at the gentle expression on John’s face mixed in with the exhaustion, the worry. 

_Drop it…_ he growled in his head, then cleared his throat.

“That’s some shite line from Doctor School, isn’t it?” he ventured, making a go at shooing off the somber clouds that he’d gathered around them.

John’s eyes feigned seriousness. “Straight out of it,” he replied. “Learnt it right after ‘this won’t hurt a bit’ and ‘turn your head and cough.’” He gave a mischievous smile.

Iarla chuckled. “There’s a prostate joke in there somewhere, I think.”

John laughed, shook his head. “Ah fuck, don’t do it,” he said, then ushered Iarla back into the room.

John had been by earlier, visiting for a bit while Sherlock was having the biopsy on his hip, the same procedure Iarla had had when he arrived at the hospital. They’d drank tea and read the papers while the BBC droned in the background and generally sat in companionable, tired silence. 

He and John – both from working-class backgrounds – had been comfortable with each other from the start, more bawdy than Sherlock, particularly when they drank together, and more likely to get in spirited discussions about football and music and things that Sherlock had never bothered to learn about. When Iarla wasn’t on assignment, he and John spent many an evening laughing too loud while Sherlock rolled his eyes, huffing around like a wet cat and declaring them both _lads._

_Sherlock…_

Iarla hadn’t seen him yet. He’d actually been afraid to ask John much about him, but now he did.

“How is he then?” he asked as he settled back down into the arm chair. There was another across from it with a little table, the hospital’s best attempt at a sitting “room” within the room. 

“He wants to see you in the morning when he’s slept off the anesthesia,” John replied, moving the tubes and all into place and setting the O2 tank to the side. Iarla noticed he didn’t really answer the question, and the hedge in John’s voice made it clear that both the news wasn’t good and that he didn’t want to talk about it. 

“Yeah, good,” he said faintly, pretended to have gotten his answer. “Be good to see him.”

It was then that John’s phone buzzed with a text, then another, and as he got everything settled, Iarla saw him pull it out and read, then he tapped out a short reply.

“Is that Himself?” Iarla asked, a faint smile coming to his lips. He pictured Sherlock over in his room in a pique with John not there.

“In a manner of speaking,” John replied cryptically, glancing at the door. “Actually…”

There was a sound from the doorway, a soft knock that interrupted him. Iarla turned toward the sound.

And there was Mick Wheatley, U.S. Navy SEAL commander and Iarla’s itinerant lover of six months standing there, the proverbial Sailor Home From the Sea. He was standing there looking rumpled and comfortable in jeans and a blue henley, his shoulder-length blond hair tied back, his beard scraggled ( _just in from Down Range_ , Iarla thought). 

And he had a warm, sad smile on his face and his eyes were shining.

Iarla felt heat rising in his face as a hot rush came into his chest. It had been three months. No word. No idea where Mick was except that it was a “long trip,” somewhere in Asia and for an extended mission. 

Mick had introduced him to that personal “code word” as they’d lain in bed that last early morning in late Spring, sweat still cooling on them from their morning sex, their legs twined beneath the new sheets. 

“How will I know…” Iarla hadn’t wanted to say it. They were fairly _new_ still and it felt too…serious? Iarla didn’t want to presume he’d earned it yet.

“I’ll contact you the second I’m back in contact range,” Mick had replied, brushing at the faint dark hair on Iarla’s chest. “Or someone will.” He shrugged, as though he were saying _Yes… This is it. This is life with me…_

Iarla hadn’t known what to say, or how to feel, or how much to say about what he felt, so he’d just leaned in and curled his arms around Mick’s strong, bare chest, his tongue slipping between Mick’s open lips for a long, slow kiss. 

Mick was still looking at him, that sweet, sad, boyish smile he found so charming on his face.

“Mick,” Iarla said softly. “You’re…here.”

Mick held one arm out to the side in a “ta da” gesture, swung the duffel bag down and set it down against the doorway to the bathroom. 

“In the flesh,” he said, coming into the room. 

As he neared them, Iarla was vaguely aware of him saying something to John as they shook hands, the two of them exchanging pleasantries. But Iarla wasn’t listening. The heat in his chest was threatening to overwhelm him, and now he knew it was his own bloody _emotions_ that were rising there, the damn _feelings_ he’d been trying not to let in or out, to pretend weren’t there. 

_Not now,_ he thought, anguished. _Not straight off. We’re not ready for this…we’re not--_

He swallowed, shaking his head, his eyes down as John and Mick finished their greetings, as Mick thanked John for helping him to get there that night. He swallowed again as he felt Mick’s hand slide onto his shoulder.

“Right, I’ll leave you to it then,” John said, breaking into the jumble of his thinking and the wave starting to break over him. 

Iarla tried to speak, but he couldn’t get it out. He nodded instead, meeting John’s eyes, and John nodded back, a look on his face that told Iarla he understood. With an “until later” to Mick, John was gone, the door closing behind him.

Then Mick was in front of Iarla, coming down on one knee in front of the chair. His hands slid onto the tops of Iarla’s thighs, resting on the worn denim there.

“Tell me how you are,” Mick said, cutting right to it. He leaned down low to look into Iarla’s face. When Iarla averted his gaze again ( _too much, too much_ ), he felt Mick’s fingers on his chin, tilting his face up so that their eyes met. Iarla felt his fill with tears.

“Tell me,” Mick asked again, and his voice was hoarse.

Iarla turned his face into Mick’s hand. He felt what was in him cresting, all that he hadn’t been able to let himself feel overtaking him. A sob caught.

“I—“ he tried, and he shook his head. He felt like he was falling and falling—

He doubled over with an anguished sound. And Mick was there, strong as iron, to catch him.

 

**

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER FOUR


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER FOUR**

 

John had grown to hate classical music. 

It had happened only recently. Today, to be exact. Right about the fourth hour of listening to Sherlock sawing away for the second day, off and on, at some difficult violin piece in front of one of the windows, the manic cadence drawing John’s nerves to a razor edge and bringing it to a snapping point. 

Add to this that Sherlock had been either surly or silent since his demand for release from the hospital, seeming only interested in either the collection of slides of his and Iarla’s blood and marrow samples or the crazed violin piece. Anything else was snapped off with a glare or a growly sluff-off, if it wasn’t ignored completely. 

John would have been more comfortable with Sherlock in the hospital, getting blood draws every evening and easy access to the hospital’s supplies of IVs. But Sherlock, as usual, had his own ideas, ones he’d made quite clear when John had come in from a middle-of-the-night kip at Baker Street and found Sherlock standing in front of the open wardrobe, getting dressed in the morning light.

“Going somewhere?” John had asked. He was standing a few feet into the room, and he was aware from the look on Sherlock’s face that he should tread lightly. It was the expression Sherlock got when he was already well into an argument. John knew it well.

“Home.” The word hung in the air. Sherlock looked down at the buttons of his shirt as he did them up.

John had nodded. “M’kay, right,” he said, going easy. “Were you going to talk to anyone about it, or just--”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Sherlock said, his voice low and monotone as he worked on his cuffs. “They have my blood. They have a marrow sample. There’s nothing else they need from me. And I’m frankly weary of lying around being gawked at and poked by idiots or, worse, visited by well-meaning friends who engage me in tedious attempts to—“ He made air quotes with a jerked motion. “’— _jolly me up._ ” 

“Sherlock,” John began carefully, seeing the roiling storm starting to rumble right in front of him. “You’re 48 hours from collapsing on the street, and 24 hours from a marrow biopsy. I really think--“

“No,” Sherlock snapped, looking at him with his bloodshot eyes. “It might make you more comfortable for me to be here, but it will not make me so.” He returned his attention to the wardrobe, gathering his keys and change and sliding them into his trouser pockets.

John heaved out a breath, reining in the flare of frustration. “Sherlock, we don’t really know what we’re dealing with, yeah?” he tried again, coming forward a few steps. “Listen, why don’t you—“

Sherlock spun on him as he snatched his jacket from the wardrobe. “Why don’t I _what?_ ” he snapped, his pale face splotched with red. “I know what I need. I need _quiet_. I need _privacy._ I am the best help I have in this and I need to bloody well _think!_ ”

And that, as they say, had been that.

The first day, the visit from Mycroft for what John imagined was a hugely “edited for tele” version of his discussion with James Moriarty. John, leaning on what passed for both a desk and a dining room table, had watched Sherlock’s pale face as Mycroft told him about it. Sherlock had stared at the center of Mycroft’s chest as if boring a hole in it with his eyes, his fingers steepled, and had glanced up only once, when Mycroft had revealed James’ response to Mycroft’s question about whether James could help Sherlock.

“What did he say?” Sherlock said softly. “ _Exactly,_ what did he say?”

Mycroft tilted his head. “He said ‘I cannot help your brother,’” he replied.

“You don’t believe him, of course.” John watched Sherlock’s eyes narrow as he spoke.

Mycroft gave a pained smile. “Of course not. But it does support my theory that this somehow extends beyond the realm of the purely personal.”

Sherlock returned his attention to Mycroft’s chest, nodding once. “Agreed.”

Mycroft continued, rubbing at a spot of tea on the arm of the well-worn chair. “It makes me a touch…concerned, to be frank.”

John swallowed. Mycroft Holmes “a touch concerned.” It was tantamount to a siren blow in John’s head.

“John,” Mycroft said, turning his attention to him. “You’ve spent a good bit of time with Drs. Pierce and Stevenson at this point, yes?”

The two oncologists working Iarla and Sherlock’s cases. “Yes,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“What do you think of them?” Mycroft was still worrying the stain on the chair’s arm, watching his fingers move over it. 

John licked his lips. “They’re good,” he said haltingly. “But they’re out of their league.” His gaze flicked to Sherlock’s profile. “Not that it’s their fault. I am, as well. I’m not a researcher, and this needs that.”

Mycroft nodded. “What does your _gut_ tell you, John?”

“Why not ask me?” Sherlock interjected, piqued. 

“Because I want John’s opinion, clearly?” Mycroft let it drift up into a question.

“Why?” Sherlock shot back, glancing between John and Mycroft. “He’s not a researcher, he’s just said as much. He’s not---“

“ _John,_ ” Mycroft cut in, his voice rising to silence Sherlock. “What does your gut tell you about this?”

John looked back and forth between them uncertainly. Sherlock had returned his gaze to Mycroft’s chest, blowing out a frustrated breath. Mycroft was staring at him intently.

“I think,” John began, cleared his throat. “Given that both Sherlock and Iarla have contracted it…and that Iarla’s case is so much more…aggressive at this point, that it’s either some sort of toxin—“

Sherlock snorted. John felt his face redden, but he pressed on.

“—Or a virus. One we’ve never seen before.” He swallowed again. “I’m going to guess something that’s been…engineered to have this effect.”

Mycroft seemed to consider, though John could tell all of this had occurred to him already. “To what end?”

John shook his head, looked down. “In heroin? No idea.”

Sherlock had apparently heard enough. He rose a bit unsteadily, righting himself immediately, and withdrew, through the kitchen and down the hallway. The sound of the bedroom door slamming rang out in the flat. 

“Allow me to apologize for my brother,” Mycroft said softly in the deafening beat of quiet that followed. “As I’m sure you’ve guessed, he has never really been ill before, not for any significant length of time. I don’t think it’s going to be something that he handles with anything approaching _grace._ ”

John barked a laugh. “Unlike the way he handles almost everything else?” he said, glad to have an excuse to break the tension. “I can handle Sherlock, Mycroft. You don’t need to be concerned about me.”

Mycroft had looked at him then, his eyes grave, graver than even the tense conversation had earned. “I’m afraid I am, John,” Mycroft said softly. “Something tells me you’re somehow linked to this, though I don’t know how as of yet.”

“Me?” John said, taken aback. “What the hell does this have to do with _me?_?”

Mycroft looked out the window, appearing far away for a few beats. John waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. He simply rose and began to gather his things. 

“I’m in the process of initiating contact with some experts in the government’s medical research community,” he said, changing the subject. He regarded the apartment with an unreadable look. “I will, of course, be in touch with any further information.” 

John nodded, said “right, that’s good,” watched Mycroft fuss with his umbrella handle. The sun was shining brightly outside. John wondered what caliber bullets the thing took. 

Mycroft came to stand in front of him, seeming to weigh whether to speak or not. Finally he said: “I must be honest and say that I’m not thrilled with his being out of hospital.” He was hesitant enough that John didn’t take offense.

“Not thrilled myself,” John replied softly, pushing up from his lean on the table edge. “Also not my choice.”

Mycroft gave a soft laugh. “I’m sure,” he replied. Then he leveled his gaze at John, going so serious he looked nearly grim. “I trust you with his care, of course. For many reasons.”

“Yes, thank you,” John said, nodding and looking down, fighting the urge to remind Mycroft that he would take care of Sherlock quite well without his approval.

Mycroft’s voice dropped to just above a whisper. “I also trust that you will know when it is time for me to intervene.”

John pursed his lips, looking back up into the Mycroft’s worried face. The sadness his words brought opened like a well in John’s chest. 

_Oh._

“Yes,” he said quietly, nodding and holding Mycroft’s gaze. “I’ll know.” 

Mycroft nodded, forced a small smile. Then he was gone.

Yesterday, the violin playing had started, joined soon after by intermittent pacing. At first Sherlock seemed to be simply playing the same few measures again and again, as though trying to play them _just so_. Then he began flying through the entire piece, standing after for long beats, fingering the strings and breathing hard. 

It was the same as Sherlock got on a case, of course. But the problem was that the case was in the house, in Sherlock himself, and it left him nowhere to _be_ but there with John and himself.

John tried to stay clear, it seeming the safest course. He made Sherlock meals that he didn’t eat and brought him tea that he did drink. He sat in his chair and watched Sherlock begin a collage on the mirror, press clippings from the file folder in the desk on Jim Moriarty mixed with chemical formulas and sketches of what appeared to be the specimens under the slides. Two pieces of paper joined these in the afternoon and were soon covered with Sherlock’s handwriting.

He tried to keep up with how Sherlock was feeling, trying to note any changes. But it was hard to tell. Sherlock was so agitated that he appeared constantly flushed to the point of fever, his breathing too fast from pacing or playing the harried violin piece. 

John did not go to the hospital. He had already spoken to Sarah about the hours at the clinic and was off indefinitely. He’d told Lestrade to give them a few days to let things settle before he came over or called with some slow-throw of a case. 

He just…waited. For Mycroft to call, perhaps. For Sherlock to solve the whole thing in a flurry of verbal fireworks. For something he couldn’t quite name.

Both nights Sherlock had slept on the couch. John had gotten up in the middle of the night both nights to drape the thicker duvet from the bed over him, then returned to sleep alone – poorly – in their bed. 

Day three and he was frayed and exhausted. By lunch, the violin started up again. Same piece. Four hours. John felt the silver thread of his wits pull and pull, and then--

“What’s that you’re playing there?” It was out of him before he realized he intended to stay it aloud, and when he heard it, some part of him said: _Well, sod it then._ The safe course had never suited him, after all.

Sherlock stopped playing, the bow still on the strings. When he spoke, he enunciated each word with the painful precision he reserved for idiots. “Barber. Concerto for Violin & Orchestra, Op.14-3. Presto in moto perpetuo.”

John snapped the newspaper. “ _In perpetuo_ sounds about right, yeah,” he said, sarcasm dripping. 

Sherlock turned and looked at him, his eyes like flint. “Problem?”

“No, no,” John said, and now his temper was starting to flare. “It’s a lovely piece. Your playing’s brilliant. But by the 400th time hearing it, it’s like listening to a bloody mouse in a blender.”

Sherlock’s face went red, his lips going thin. Then his arm shot up, pointing to the door with the bow. “Leave if it bothers you so.” 

John closed the paper, shaking his head. He could feel his ears pinking. “I’m not leaving,” he said, trying to get hold of his temper.

“I said leave!” Sherlock shouted, his voice booming in the room. He was breathing too hard again, hands shaking.

“And I said I’m not leaving!” John roared back, tossing the newspaper down and shooting to his feet, pointing at Sherlock. “Do you know why? Because I _bloody well live here._ With you. And not as your flatmate that you can toss out when you get a notion to. I’m your _lover,_ you idiot, and I’m in this _with_ you!” 

Sherlock stood there, panting, looking thunderstruck. He swallowed, his arms dropping, the violin making a faint hollow sound as it knocked against his leg. He looked down. John’s chest was heaving as he watched the emotions warring on Sherlock’s face, settling out to a vaguely chastised, pale mask.

“I am sorry,” Sherlock said quietly, and John put his hands on his hips and looked away. 

“No, I am,” he replied. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I know…I know you’ve got a lot on your mind.” He nodded, to Sherlock and himself. He would need to do better. They both would. 

When John looked back up, Sherlock was staring into the near-distance, biting his bottom lip. He looked…lost.

“What do you need?” John ventured into the quiet. He did not go to him. He didn’t know if he should.

Sherlock hesitated. “Answers.” 

John nodded. “We’ll find them,” he said gently. “ _You’ll_ find them.”

Sherlock turned back to the window, rubbing the back of the violin with the side of his other hand. 

“I need to be alone for a bit,” he said so softly that John barely heard him. John blew out a slow breath, sadness sinking a little further into his chest.

“Yeah, okay,” he replied. “I’ll…give Greg a call. See if he wants a pint.” 

Then he gathered his keys and phone and left. 

But he didn’t call Lestrade. The last time John had spoken to him (yesterday), he’d still sounded a little rattled by Sherlock’s collapse, worried in a way that John didn’t need to feel or hear at the moment. 

So instead, John wandered around the park to the pub on the far side where he was fairly certain he wouldn’t see anyone he knew. There he parked himself in front of a snooker match that the barman was watching with a bit too much interest for the service’s sake, drinking three pints in quick succession as the balls knocked into their pockets on the screen. 

Outside, day bruised into night. 

About 8:00, his phone buzzed with a text, vibrating a bit near the bowl of crisps the barman had put in front of him. John grabbed it and checked the message.

_Going to bed. –SH_

John paid the tab and went home.

Sherlock had apparently been so tired that he hadn’t made it to the bed, instead falling asleep on the couch again. He was facing the back, his legs curled under him as though he’d been trying to tuck his large feet beneath his dressing gown. His longish hair was swept back from his face, and as John leaned over him, he couldn’t help but reach down and stroke it lightly with the backs of his knuckles, fingering a particularly errant curl into place again.

It was early, but he went to bed. He was vaguely pissed from the alcohol and felt beaten down inside him a bit and the day didn’t need to be any bloody longer than it had been anyway. The sleep would do him good. So he changed into his pajama bottoms and a worn vest and drifted off on his back in he and Sherlock’s bed, the sleep dreamless and dead.

Until he awoke to the feeling of the mattress shifting, to the covers lifting over him, to someone carefully moving on top of him, knees bracketing his hips and lips moving softly over his face.

He hummed faintly, not opening his eyes. Sherlock’s lips traced his jaw, the skin beneath his eye, the creases between his eyes as his brow furrowed. When Sherlock’s mouth moved to his, pulling his bottom lip in and giving it a soft pull, he opened his mouth and met Sherlock’s tongue with this own.

Insistent right away, pulling at his clothes. John opened his eyes, seeing the raw _need_ in Sherlock’s eyes, the set of his face. He was naked already, and seeing it, John sat up enough for Sherlock to pull the vest over his head, lifting his hips as Sherlock skimmed his pajamas and pants off and tossed them on the floor.

Sherlock buried his face in the juncture of John’s shoulder and neck, teeth grazing. John’s breath caught, his hands moving over Sherlock’s back urgently as Sherlock flattened his body against his, hips rolling gently. One of Sherlock’s arms uncurled from beneath his shoulder. He heard the bedside table drawer open, then shut.

They didn’t speak as Sherlock pushed his knees up. He bit his lip as Sherlock – all gentle fingers and urgent lips – opened him. Their eyes were locked as Sherlock slid inside.

It took a long time. Longer than it should. By the time Sherlock came, they were both so covered with sweat, so winded, that John wondered if he still had the energy to come himself. Sherlock managed it a few minutes later, breath shaking from him as he finished John off with his mouth.

Then Sherlock was back in John’s arms, his weight heavy on John’s belly and chest, John’s legs wrapped tight around his hips and thighs. He kissed Sherlock’s temple, lingering there.

“This how it’s going to go, eh?” he murmured, a tired, teasing tone in his voice. “You act the arse for days on end and then come in here like this?” He kissed Sherlock’s cheek, his jaw, holding his mouth there.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock murmured against John’s throat. “I shouldn’t pull away from you, be angry with you…I…it’s what I’ve always done…” He trailed off, shook his head.

“I know, love,” John said in a hushed voice, nodding. “I know.” 

John just held him, not saying things. He didn’t say that he would do literally _anything_ to make this go away. He didn’t say that he’d take all of it – the cancer, the fear – into his own body instead as gladly as he’d taken Sherlock into it that night. Instead, John gripped Sherlock tightly to him with his whole body, and when Sherlock nodded, John knew he understood.

It felt good to sleep with Sherlock again, the furnace of him, the gangle of legs and arms, the fitfulness. It felt like the world outside this room was a vast, uncertain ocean and their bed the only spot of land for as far as John could see. Sherlock slept curled around him like a question mark.

It was good they had the time. It was also good that John woke first in the morning to the sound of his phone vibrating on the night table with a series of texts. He squinted against the early morning light, fumbled for the phone, held it in front of his face, reading.

_Twenty-two new cases in Holland, France, U.S. U.N. Bioterrorism Task Force activated. On my way to Amsterdam. – MH_

It was good John got the messages. He needed time to sit with his fear and his anguish before what was to come was on them. And Sherlock needed rest.

 

**

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER FIVE.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FIVE**

 

The private jet broke through the thick layer of clouds that had fallen over Amsterdam, and Mycroft’s eyes were drawn to the window and the city beneath him. It was wet and gray below, its design curving it into an arc that started and ended at the river, the whole scene feeling quiet and somehow burdened with some indescribable weight. 

The sight made him feel heavy and grayer himself. He’d been sleeping poorly. Even his assistant had mentioned, in a rare moment of personality, that he looked fatigued. And there was only so much that a fresh shave and a pressed suit could do to hide his preoccupation and concern. 

He sighed heavily, looking out the window, his hands coming up, fingers pressed together, to lean against his lips. He’d perfected looking perfectly in control; he’d even perfected _feeling_ that way, having spent a lifetime training himself to sublimate any emotional response in favor of reacting solely from the cool objectivity of his reason and intellect. 

But something was stirring in him now, some acutely uncomfortable sensation like a twist in his chest. He recognized one part of it as anger, the heat of it. And then there was another part that caught him behind his eyes when he least expected it, which he’d come to understand as the first bloom of grief. 

If something weren’t done and done quickly, Sherlock would die. There was no way around that fact. And after a lifetime of protecting his hothouse flower of a brother from the cold world, Mycroft’s current state of helplessness was making him burn with the start of a dangerous kind of rage.

He pressed his fingers more firmly against his lips. The silencing gesture was not lost on him. He _must_ regain control of his emotions. To not do so might put Sherlock – and so much more – in even greater peril. 

His phone buzzed with a text, the plane making its final descent now toward the airport. He reached for it and glanced at the screen.

_Target acquired. Some complications._

Mycroft pursed his lips. Luong’s men had put up a fight then. 

_How many?_ Send.

A pause, then: _3\. None of our team._

He heaved in a breath, let it out. Three of Luong’s men felt excessive. Someone had either gotten careless or the resistance had been more than anticipated.

He felt the need to chastise his team a bit (messy things could get, well, messy), though in the end, it didn’t matter. Now that the international intelligence community was involved, no methods would be questioned. And it was entirely likely that Mycroft’s treatment would seem gentle compared to what would befall once the U.N. Bioterrorism lot got hold of him. 

What he said to his team was: _Regrettable._

His phone buzzed again. _Understood. Apologies._

The plane bumped down on the runway. Mycroft straightened his back and tucked his phone away.

 

**

 

The last person John expected to see when he entered the laboratory at King Edward’s was Dr. Jacqui Stapleton. And yet, there she was, alone in the lab and its bank of microscopes and beakers, coming up from a stool with wry smile on her face. John’s eyes widened on her as he came through the door.

“I might have known,” Stapleton said, hands going to her hips beneath her lab coat. 

John stopped in front of her, a smile beginning at the tease in her tone. “Might have known what?” he asked, reaching a hand toward her. 

“That if I got a call for something completely off the moon, you and Sherlock Holmes couldn’t be far behind it. _Again_.” She took his hand as he chuckled, gave it a squeeze. “How are you, Dr. Watson?” 

“I’m well, Dr. Stapleton,” he replied. “Fancy meeting you here.” 

“Yes, imagine,” she said vaguely, though she smiled. 

“How’s Kirsty?” he asked, letting go her hand. 

“Moved on to a cat, thank God,” Stapleton said airily. “I don’t work with cats.” He laughed, seeing her glancing at the door. “And where is Mr. Holmes then? Out stomping the moors again? Off giving someone a _bloody headache,_ that much is sure.” 

John’s smile faltered and he looked down for a beat, hesitating. 

“What?” Stapleton asked, letting go of his hand. 

John met her gaze, gave a wan smile. “He’s one of your patients, I’m afraid.” 

Her face fell a bit, and she flushed. “I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “It was wrong of me to make a joke like that—“

“No, no,” John cut in. “It’s…it’s fine.” He forced a smile again. “Though you were right about one thing: he is giving someone a headache. And it’s you.” 

She gave a bark of a laugh. “Too right,” she said, and John gestured to the stool, taking the one next to her. 

“Have you had a chance to look at the reports?” John asked, glancing at the screen of the laptop she had open to one side. 

“I’ve just been giving them a first look,” Stapleton said. She already sounded tired. “I need to run some more specialized tests on both the blood and marrow.”

John sat up straighter. “Is there something you suspect already?” He couldn’t help the little rush the thought gave him. 

She took in a breath, let it out, her eyes intent. When she spoke, it was in a soft sort of rush, as though she were mostly speaking to herself. “Well, I’m assuming that because they’re suspecting bioterrorism, it’s going to be either some kind of biological or chemical contaminant. And if it’s biological, there’s going to be something out of the ordinary with it, given what we’re seeing in terms of effects. I’m hoping we can find DNA signatures or some other kind of trail to follow.” 

John nodded. He knew that would be the next step, one he wasn’t qualified to take. And despite how disconcerting he’d once found the thought of some of the work she might have done at Baskerville, right now it filled him with relief to have someone who was an expert on genetic manipulation standing in front of him.

“This must be hard for you,” she said softly into his silence. “I was never quite clear…I mean, you two seemed…” She trailed off, and John nearly laughed.

“We weren’t quite clear then ourselves, no,” he said. “But…we are now. So yeah…it’s not been easy.” He swallowed, saw her give him a bittersweet smile. 

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured, putting a hand on his forearm.

“No, it’s fine,” he said, clearing his throat. Sometimes kindness was the most dangerous thing to his control. He drew his arm away. “He’s a stubborn sod. I’m more worried about all these new cases we’re seeing, how it’s spreading.”  
She nodded, accepting the lie. “Well,” she said, a bit too cheerfully to clear the mood away. He was grateful for it. “That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?”

“’We?’” John said, making a show of looking around. 

“My entire team’s on the way from Dartmoor,” she replied. “I was already in London working with a colleague, so I was able to come straight away. They should be here in two or three hours.” She sighed. “Baskerville’s on automatic alert when the U.N. Security Council pushes the ‘bioterrorism button.’” She lowered her voice. “We have a unique area of expertise, as I’m sure you gathered in your time with us.”

John nodded, feeling suddenly even more uncomfortable. What the hell could he possibly tell this woman about what was going on? He was an Army doctor, best trained to deal with trauma, the _loud_ injuries. Stapleton dealt in the softest whispers the body could make. Comparing their skills was like likening someone who repaired cars to someone who made microchips. 

“Well…” He cleared his throat, rising from the stool. “I was in because I got a text from Sherlock’s brother telling me the new team was here and they might need my findings thus far. But there’s probably nothing I can tell you that you won’t see on your own.” 

“Dr. Watson,” she said, standing as well. It stopped him. “Please don’t feel that you’ve nothing to offer in this, all right? You have experience with one of the potential raw materials of this compound, I’m told. You have experience with the man whom I understand Whitehall thinks could be behind this. And you know Sherlock and can help us manage him, if necessary.”

John laughed. “I can _try_ , yes. No guarantees.” 

Stapleton nodded, smiled to him. “Yes,” she said, looking toward the computer. “No guarantees.” 

The words seeped into him, heavy. His smile faltered, and hers did as well. He watched her break his gaze, find it again. 

“Well,” she said. “If you can go over these reports with me so I can brief the others fully when they get here, I’d really appreciate the help.”

He nodded, gathering himself and pushing the sadness away. “Sure, yeah,” he said, and followed her back to their seats.

 

**

Mid-afternoon and the usual noise was going on below the windows at Baker Street, the comings and goings at Speedy’s, someone barking for a cab. A horn blew off at the intersection. It was summer after all. People were out and about.

Six tabs open on his laptop’s browser, Sherlock did his best to ignore it all, clicking back and forth among the pages, eyes scanning the screen, finger on the touchpad scrolling down page after page. Journal articles and electron microscope images, government sites and graphs. He tapped away, moving easily over paywalls and through password-protected sites. 

When he tired of this, he texted his brother and received no reply. He took his medication when the alarm and reminder John had set on his phone went off. He stared into his microscope at the slides until his eyes ached as badly as the rest of him did. 

The pain had settled into him as he sat, mostly because the bruising and the ease with which it happened was getting worse. He’d discovered this when he’d showered earlier, right after John had left to go to the hospital. He had intentionally waited for John to leave before rising, the dull pain of the bruises throbbing on him there in the warm nest of their bed. He wanted to see his body this morning himself before John saw it. For some reason, having even that tiny bit of control was beginning to matter to him.

Standing nude before the mirror in the bath, the shower running, Sherlock looked at his body, hands smoothing over his belly and chest. There were bruises on his hip bones (pressure points where he’d moved between John’s legs). More on his forearms (John’s hands) and another seep of dark starting on his chest (from what, God only knew). 

Sighing, he turned around as steam began to wreath the mirror, glancing over his shoulder at his own back and buttocks. The falling bookcases from the chase a few days before had left a map of bruises all over his back and shoulders. There was a blotch where one buttock met his thigh. 

He was thinner now, too thin. His ribs were stark above the odd distension of his belly. His spleen was enlarged and sore from the leukemia cells crowded in. He’d never been a fan of eating, and now the pressure from this exacerbated his lack of appetite. He felt vaguely full and nauseated, though he hadn’t eaten a thing.

 _Distraction,_ he thought bitterly, turning away and running both hands through his hair in frustration. He climbed into the shower vaguely peeved at himself for giving into it, for caring at all. He would simply keep working and push the distraction away.

There in the kitchen, he decided he’d done all he could with the specimens before him, compared them and measured them as best he could with the equipment he had there in the flat. It was time to go to the hospital and simply add more data. 

He pulled on his suit jacket, checked himself in the mirror over the mantle, then took his keys and left the flat.

He would start with Iarla, he decided in the cab. Sherlock had only seen him briefly, the conversation filled with a forced sort of ease as Iarla had tried to make light of their predicament. The SEAL commander, Mick, had been there, standing off to one side with John and Sherlock had spoken to them. The way neither of them seemed to be able to hide their concern (their _sentiment_ , Sherlock thought darkly, peeved again) had driven Iarla into the forced lightness as surely as it had driven Sherlock nearly mad. Sherlock had snapped at both of them that they looked like a pair of khaki and plaid-clad mother hens. 

Perhaps if Sherlock spoke to Iarla on his own, he decided. Perhaps Iarla could be more forthcoming with information that way, less likely to sugarcoat or evade…

The cab brought him to King Edward’s and he paid the fare. He swiped the identification card he’d been given to access the top floor, the speaker coming on and asking for his name. He kept it out as the elevator began moving. When the doors opened, he would need it again.

He tapped on the door to Iarla’s room at the end of the hall, pushed it open. He knew before he entered that Iarla was alone in the room, the television mumbling from its cabinet against the wall. 

He had the head of the bed propped up and was on top of the covers in jeans and a white T-shirt. IVs trailed from both arms, and he still wore the oxygen cannula over his lip. He looked clean-shaven and his hair was wet. 

“Hiya,” Iarla said softly from the bed, forcing a smile. Sherlock gave him a tepid one back as he came to stand by the bed.

“How are you feeling?” It was a polite thing to ask. He also needed to know.

Iarla nodded in that too-vigorous way of someone trying to keep up appearances. “Good, yeah.” His eyes drifted down to Sherlock’s chest.

“Iarla, a lesson in lying,” Sherlock said, stepping closer. “You cannot do it convincingly unless you can look the person you’re lying to _straight_ in the eye.”

Iarla smiled, the look warm and sad as his gaze met Sherlock’s, locked there. “I’m good,” he said again.

Sherlock gave him a faint smile back. “Better.” 

Iarla laughed softly. “How are _you?_ ” he asked, and he reached up, thumbed at the open V of Sherlock’s shirt where the edge of the bruise there peeked out. Iarla’s hand jerked faintly ( _neurological involvement_ ), and there was some sort of blister-like sore from some sort of opportunistic infection on one corner of his lip. 

Iarla might be fighting, but his body was losing.

“I’m trying to make the most of time,” Sherlock replied, looking at Iarla seriously. Words tumbled out. “There’s so much I don’t know about what’s happened to us, and without knowing, I cannot _understand_ it. If I can’t understand it, I can’t _solve_ it. You see the problem.”

“Aye, I see it well, yeah,” Iarla said, eyes widening. Sherlock rushed on.

“And now I’m looking at you, at the tremors starting. It won’t be long before you become confused, or your personality changes, or you begin to forget—“

Iarla was nodding, but there was something coming into his face. “Great, yeah, delicately put, okay—“

“And I’m right behind you, you see? I’m a week, perhaps a bit more, behind your symptoms, and how will I bloody _fix_ this if I cease to be _myself?!_ ”

Iarla was swallowing, his eyes rimmed. The television came back into Sherlock’s focus. Iarla’s gaze flicked down, his expression clearly one of hurt. Sherlock saw his throat working, and his own mouth opened, snapped closed, opened again. 

John’s voice drifted back to him. 

_Sherlock. **Timing.** …._

“I am sorry,” he said softly. “That was most likely unforgiveable.” He looked down, bit his lip, tamping down his frustration to a lower burn.

“It was bad, yeah,” Iarla said quietly, but when Sherlock looked back up, he’d managed a ghost of a smile. “But…it’s all right. We’re both going to deal with this our way. And I know it’s not easy on you, me lying about acting as a fucking ‘preview of coming attractions.’”

Sherlock didn’t know what to say to that. Here was yet another example of the fundamental way that John was different in Sherlock's world: it was nearly impossible for Sherlock to wound John the way he hurt others. Without thought. With ease. After all, It had taken the jump from Bart's and the deception around it to truly hurt John. For everyone else...a few words was often all it took to bring them to their knees.

But Iarla _was_ right. Seeing him did put Sherlock’s nerves on edge.

Sherlock shook his head and changed the subject instead.

“I need you tell me about your contact with Luong in Amsterdam,” he said, and Iarla nodded. 

“I’ve told Mycroft’s people all I know about everything that happened to me at The Nebula,” Iarla said, shaking his head. “They didn’t act like there was anything useful there.”

“Yes, but you haven’t told _me,_ have you?” Sherlock replied sharply. “And the government and I wouldn’t be looking for the same things. Now—“ 

He stopped, caught himself this time as Iarla’s eye widened a bit again at the urgency rising in Sherlock’s voice. He raised a hand, set it down next to Iarla’s arm on the bed.

“If you feel well enough to manage it…would you tell me about your time with Luong? Your time on the drug?”

Iarla nodded. “I will,” he said softly, and Sherlock sat down in a chair by the edge of the bed as Iarla blew out a slow breath and began.

 

**

Lying against John in the back of a cab as night began to fall, Sherlock was still replaying pieces of what Iarla had told him in his mind. 

In response to his question about whether Luong seemed to change at any point in Iarla’s dealing with him: “He seemed reluctant a few times…like he didn’t want me there…He still dosed me…after a few times, it went away.”

To the drug itself. “It was just street stuff when I first got there, good but ordinary shite…you could carry it out too, buy it in the back. The first time I had the new brew, that’s when the back room started. That’s when the guns came out…”

“Hey,” John murmured against his hair close to his ear. “Stop thinking so much. I can feel your brain humming like an engine in there.” 

“…Can’t,” he said softly. 

“Try,” John said, squeezing his hand between them. “Let yourself rest.” 

And Sherlock was tired. He’d been tired when he left Iarla spent in his room from telling the long story of his life in Amsterdam. But Sherlock had tried hard to hide this fact in front of Stapleton when he’d nearly bumped into her and John at the lift. 

She’d looked at him like he was a specimen in a petri dish, as well as with something akin to regret. Once he’d placed it as _pity,_ he’d snapped at her, hackles raised.

“What is it you believe you’re seeing when you look at me like that, Dr. Stapleton?” he’d asked by way of greeting. 

“Sherlock…” John had interjected. 

But Stapleton was ready for Sherlock. He’d been in rare form in Baskerville, a bastard by his own newly revised standards, and she knew how to cut him down. 

“I think I’m looking at what is likely an incredibly dangerous biological weapon at work in an obviously very stubborn and very ill man,” she replied, eyes boring in. “But I’ll do my best to hide that fact from here on out, Mr. Holmes. My apologies.” 

John coughed then, rocking on his heels. Sherlock had gaped, felt a smile curl just one side of his mouth. 

_This one,_ he thought wryly, _I can work with._

“You look ready to drop, Mr. Holmes,” Stapleton had told him then, giving him a quirk of a smile back. “And we’ve got a long way to go. So I suggest you go home with Dr. Watson and get some rest.”

Then Stapleton went in to meet Iarla as John urged Sherlock the other way.

Now, early evening, his cheek against John’s shoulder, his arms curled around himself. He was so cold. The temperature must have really dropped as the sun went down…

“You’re shivering,” John murmured, and Sherlock felt John curl a warm arm around him, pull him closer in. 

Sherlock made a faint, pleased noise in his throat. He was tired. Extraordinarily so.

He must have dozed because the next thing he knew, John was shifting beneath him, the cab door opening. The door to 221B was in front of them as they stepped onto the sidewalk and John paid the fare. 

Up the stairs, John fumbling with the keys and opening the door, talking softly. 

“Why don’t you go get changed while I--” 

But Sherlock never found out what John would be doing. The words died in his mouth as they entered the room and they saw Irene Adler lying there, tucked beneath John’s favorite afghan on the couch, fast asleep. 

“Shit,” John sighed, shaking his head as he pocketed his keys. 

Sherlock took in this new piece, knowing one of two things had just happened: the situation had just gotten significantly better or significantly worse. 

And only time would tell which.

 

**

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER SIX.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER SIX**

 

There was a particular way that John did things in the kitchen when he was angry. There was a rhythm to it, as though each sudden noise – a drawer slamming shut with a snap, the lid of something rolling on its rim in that annoying “hubcap” way for a beat before John slapped it down with his hand – were a punctuation mark on something he would very much _like_ to say aloud by instead kept to himself.

Sherlock knew John well enough at this point that he could hear John’s voice in his head.

 _Right, as if we didn’t have **enough** bloody trouble, now we’ve got **Irene Adler** to manage--_ And the silverware drawer slammed shut.

Canister of loose tea popping open with a short, tinny sound. _She can have sodding P.G. Tips, letting herself in like she owns the place—_ And it snapped shut again, the cabinet opening, the inexpensive teabags coming out just before the clattering of three mugs.

John’s strops were as predictable as rain, and the sounds made Sherlock feel warm and fond, even as he regretted John’s upset.

Irene sat in front of him in his own chair, Sherlock having taken John’s both because the soft cup of it had grown warmer and more comfortable for him, and because he knew it would have particularly irritated John if Irene had taken his seat. 

Looking at her, he felt a fondness for her as well, though it was markedly different. What he felt for John had long ago filled the part of him that had once found her so compelling and washed it away. When he looked at her now, he felt the deep, comfortable warmth one had for an old friend who’d shared difficult times. 

Irene was sitting forward in the chair, her arms crossed over her knees, her hands folded. She looked much better than she had when he’d last seen her at Christmas. She was a healthier weight, her coloring better, her eyes less careworn. Hair down, pulled back in a loose ponytail. Black linen pants, a white shirt open at the neck (and a bit rumpled from her time on the couch), black flats. More plain than she typically wore, but also more comfortable. Still lovely. 

“What on earth has happened to you?” she asked softly. The wry tease he usually saw in her eyes was gone. Her brow was furrowed with concern. Spoons clanged in the kitchen.

“I’ve been ill,” he replied just as softly, pressing his hands before his face. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Kate left,” she said dismissively. “I needed London for a bit, some time by the Thames, a friend. But never mind that.” She stood in one smooth motion, her hand going to cup his cheek. “Tell me everything, love.”

Another slam, this time the mugs onto a tray, the teapot’s lid jarring.

She looked up toward the kitchen. “Yes, John, you’ve made it plain,” she called. “I’m sorry to have let myself in. I got restless at the hotel and assumed you’d be back soon.”

“We’ve got bloody _phones,_ Irene,” John said grumpily, coming in with the tray. He set it on the table with a thunk.

“I didn’t want a ‘no,’” she replied evenly, standing to face him, her hand slipping from Sherlock’s cheek. John shook his head, pouring the tea into the teacup between the two mugs.

“Forgive me, I don’t know how you take it,” he said, gesturing to the cup. 

“Milk, one sugar, thank you,” she replied, and he handed it to her when it was prepared, saw to his and to Sherlock’s. 

“I’m sorry to hear about Kate,” Sherlock said softly, taking the cup from John and meeting his eyes. 

_Please,_ he said with them, and John pursed his lips, relenting, and gave a nod. He went to bring a chair from the table, forming a circle of their chairs.

“I can’t say that I blame her,” Irene replied, the cup perched beneath her lip. “Not quite the woman she fell in love in with, as they say.” She gave the tea a soft puff of air, took a sip. Her voice had grown dark with the last words.

“I’m sorry,” John said quietly, the last of the strop dissipating. In John, kindness would always win out over pique.

Irene gave John a small smile. “Tell me what’s happened,” she said, looking at Sherlock, then at John.

And they did. 

By the time they were finished, it was well after 9:00. To Sherlock, Irene and John’s words had started to sound far away, his eyes on the window. He was turning it all over as they spoke, but his mind was gauzy, as though he were trying to think through a veil.

“…at some point he’ll make his next move, and then we’ll know….” Irene was the one talking now, but he had begun to drift. 

“ _We_? I don’t think you’re involved in this, are you?” John. Shoving her back.

“I know how people work, John. I know how this man works. And I can…”

“…and trouble bloody follows you, Irene…”

“Honestly, John, you’d think…”

Behind his eyes, Sherlock was walking a corridor, the high ceiling above him. A sweet smell, like honey…

Then there were hands on his face, the callous of John’s thumb stroking his temple. He could feel John’s warm breath, smell the tea, the tang of sweat and the faintness of his aftershave.

“Sherlock,” John said, as though from very far away. He felt John’s arms slide beneath his, pulling him to a sleepy stand. His eyes stayed closed, his feet shuffling on the rug, then the kitchen floor.

“What…” He said it there in the corridor, the sound echoing high above him. The stars shone outside the high windows, winking in and out. 

“It’s all right,” John said softly. “Let’s get you to bed.” 

 

**

John helped Sherlock undress, and there in the bedside table’s lamplight he got his first good look at the bruises that were coming in, the odd mottling of Sherlock’s pale body. 

“Do they hurt?” he asked softly, finger tracing over the edge of the blot of color on his chest. 

“Yes, leave it,” Sherlock replied, grumbling and reaching for John’s wrist to push his hand away. His eyes had opened enough that he met John’s gaze. He looked irritated, but there was something underneath.

John swallowed, reaching to him again. “Sherlock, let me—“

“Are you my doctor or my lover, John?” Sherlock said tersely. His deep voice was hoarse with fatigue, but the anger was still there. 

The question took John completely off guard. “I’m…” He thought about it for a beat. “I’m…your lover, of course.”

Sherlock shook his head. “Then don’t be both,” he said. “It leaves me without a respite from the prodding, the constant gawking. I know you’re concerned. I know this is difficult for you. But please…”

John nodded. “I understand,” he said. He felt his face flush. “I’m sorry.” 

“No need,” Sherlock replied, toeing off his shoes and lifting his hips enough to push his trousers down his legs. John went to the dresser on the other side of the bed, rooted through until he found a T-shirt and a clean pair of pajama bottoms. 

“Something with sleeves,” Sherlock said haltingly, seeing what he’d pulled out, then turned back around, folding his trousers. “I can’t… I’m cold.”

John looked at his back, swallowed. “Yeah, okay,” he said with forced ease, and went into the bottom drawer, into the winter clothes, to find something for Sherlock to wear.

 

**

 

John called a taxi for Irene – it was late and the chances of flagging one down on their block were slim. Then he walked her down, standing outside the flat’s entrance as they waited for the car to arrive. 

He stood with his arms behind his back, rocking a bit on the balls of his feet. He was trying not to look at her because he could tell she was looking at him, had been off and on all evening, taking him into her gaze in that way that reminded him of the way Sherlock looked at things when he was trying to work them out. 

Unlike Sherlock at those times, there was emotion there as well. She was upset. Her eyes gleamed with it.

“Are you all right?” she asked finally.

He sniffed, rubbed his brow, looking down. “Of course,” he said. 

“You’re not,” she replied. “You’re out of your league and have no control. And no one to fight, and that’s hurting you most of all, I think.”

“If I want a bloody therapist,” John snapped, meeting her eyes with a hard glare. “I’ve got a card for one upstairs.”

“John,” she said softly, curving a hand on his arm. “I’d like to help you. Be…a friend.”

“Since when has being a friend to me mattered to you, Irene?” he shot back bitterly. “You used to have a great laugh at my expense, if you recall.” His face flushed with the memory of it.

But instead of being shoved back by his words, she took a step closer. Her eyes seemed to flash as he looked at her. “I used to do a lot of things that I no longer do,” she replied softly. “That’s why Kate left, you know. Because I wouldn’t _hurt her_ any more. Because I can’t—“ 

Her voice broke, and that along with her words took him down a self-righteous peg. She was looking down at the street now, her jaw working, blinking and making what was clearly a herculean effort to blink back tears.

“Lost your taste for it?” he asked softly, and she looked at him. He could tell she was looking for something smug in his tone or on his face. She found none.

“Yes,” she murmured. “Does that please you, John?”

He nodded. “Yeah, it does,” he replied, then slid his hand over hers. “But the reason for it doesn’t. It never will. What happened to you was…a _horror._ ”

“What happened to you was, too.” She squeezed his arm. “What’s happening now is, as well.” 

He swallowed, nodded, his own eyes shining. “Yes.” 

“He doesn’t have much time, does he?” She said it so softly he barely heard her. He looked down again, unable to meet her eyes, and let go of her hand. 

“No.” He rubbed at his brow. It was a hard thing to say.

It was then that the taxi pulled up, brakes giving a faint squeak as it stopped. 

“John, let me help you,” Irene pleaded softly, urgently. “And let me help _him._ ”

He looked at her then, at what he saw in her face. He gave a faint smile. “All right. If you've nothing else on, you can help me distract him then. You’ve always been quite good at that.” 

She gave a soft laugh and let him go, following behind him as he opened the door and helped her into the cab. 

“Come back tomorrow,” he said as she settled in. “But text first, yeah?”

She smiled, looking faintly chastised. “Yes, of course.”

He smiled back, closed the door, and watched as the car pulled away.

 

**

Later, he would remember the next week in snatches of memory, the rest a blur of fatigue, visions of London as he rode back and forth to King Edward’s in the backs of cabs to meet with Iarla and Stapleton, market aisles. He cooked, slept fitfully and then heavily. He waited. 

What would come back to him later, though, were the moments when it became clear that things were no longer what they had been, and perhaps would never be again. 

*

First, there was the day after his discussion with Irene, the day when Mycroft had texted in the early morning to say he was coming over to the flat. 

When he arrived, he looked both tired and thunderous in a suit fit for a funeral. Dark even for him. Sherlock was sleeping still.

“Please, don’t wake him,” Mycroft said quietly. He sat like a statue in Sherlock’s chair. John stopped in mid-stride as he’d started for the kitchen.

“But he’d want to know what Luong—“

“Victor Luong is dead,” Mycroft interrupted.

John sank his hands into the pocket of his jeans. Something sank even deeper in his chest. “How?” It was the only word he could find.

“We interrogated him once – humanely, might I add.” He’d clearly noticed the trepidation on John’s face at what that could mean. He continued in an almost bored, quiet monotone. “He told us nothing of consequence and seemed forthcoming. He mentioned that he had made arrangements for access to the opium from the genetically modified poppies with Malik in Afghanistan. He said he had done so without Moriarty’s assistance. He told us that Moriarty had contacted him later, wanting samples of the heroin. He knew from Malik had Malik had refused to give Moriarty access to the live crop, hence…your involvement in that part of the process.”

John nodded. He had been told later that his was the only “item” that Moriarty actually needed from the “games” he’d made them all play, the partially crushed poppy handed to him in the hospital weeks after John had tucked the thing in the armor over what would become his partially crushed chest.

Mycroft continued. “He said he had not altered the composition of his heroin beyond using Malik’s opium, and he insisted that he had also made no arrangements with Moriarty to do so. He said he thought Sherlock was simply another customer when he’d come in that evening.”

John blew out a breath, hands on his hips now. “Well, that’s bollocks right there, we know. Sherlock said it was clear he knew who he was and that he was there for the formula.” 

Mycroft gave him a quick smile that vanished immediately. “Of course. I would say that nearly everything he revealed on this first interview was, as you say, _bollocks._ ” It was clearly the first time the word had ever left his mouth, and it nearly made John laugh.

“So what happened to him?” John asked.

“We put him a room for a bit to let him…consider his options, let’s say,” Mycroft said, folding his hands tightly in his lap. “An hour later, he was dead. Poisoned, the autopsy uncovered, with an unknown toxin that was apparently administered before he was apprehended.”

John nodded. “Some kind of ‘kill switch’ then.” 

Mycroft nodded, looking at John gravely. “It would appear so.” He drifted into quiet for a beat, sighing, then went on. “We have been unable to locate any of Luong’s other associates. Alive at least. The ones we have found are also dead.” 

John nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “Thorough.”

Mycroft nodded, steepling his fingers in that Holmesian way. “Yes,” he said softly. “And I can only assume that pattern will continue.” He paused. “The U.N. Bioterrorism division is moving as many of the patients in Amsterdam and the other regions as possible to King Edward’s. Those that are not being moved have had tissue and blood samples taken and those are being consolidated there as well.”

“Good, yeah, that’s good,” John replied, pleased. He knew the news would please Stapleton as well. “It will help to see all the iterations of the disease in all the patients, I should think.” 

Mycroft cleared his throat. “As for Mr. Brennan, I understand his condition is deteriorating rather rapidly.”

John nodded. “Yes. Dr. Stapleton wants to try radiation treatments. It might protect his brain and central nervous system from further effects. That would be the usual treatment for leukemia at this stage, but…we’re not sure what we’re working with. There’s no way to know if it will work.”

Mycroft’s eyes flicked to the bedroom and back to John’s face. “And my brother?”

John shifted his weight, hating the question, hating to be the one to answer it. “He’s…fighting,” he said. “But he’s getting tired.”

Mycroft nodded, looked down. “Time has put us at a great disadvantage in this,” he said softly. “I am doing everything within my power to find traces of his activity in this matter, but…it will take time.”

“Do you think he’ll actually let Sherlock die?” John asked, afraid of the answer.

Mycroft took a deep breath, let it out. “My instincts say ‘no,’” he replied thoughtfully. “James is a master of the power play. He is ruthless, yes, but he is also resourceful and extraordinarily patient. There are significantly easier ways to kill Sherlock, and without involving others in it. No, something tells me this is part of some wider tactic, or a series of them.”

“Yes, but for what?” Mycroft’s calm analysis was setting John’s teeth on edge.

Mycroft gave a small shrug, reached for his umbrella. “For that, we will have to wait. For my contacts to finish their investigations. For Dr. Stapleton and her team. For…something.”

*

Two days later, Lestrade came over with photos from a murder investigation with ritualistic overtones. 

Irene was there, still sitting at the table where she and Sherlock had been playing a game of chess. Sherlock and Lestrade had cleared out a spot on the kitchen table. John was on the couch, ostensibly reading the paper, but he was surreptitiously watching Sherlock look at the photos one at a time, lifting each close to his face where his other hand held his magnifying glass up to one eye.

Sherlock’s hands had begun to shake.

“You’ve already solved this one,” Sherlock rumbled. 

Lestrade shook his head. “No, we—“

“You _have,_ ” Sherlock cut in, sharper now. A twitch had started at one corner of his lip, one brow. His face flushed in anger.

 _Shit,_ John thought, closing the paper.

Lestrade sat back, crossed his arms. “Well, we’ve got a few _ideas,_ yeah, but—“

“God _damn_ you, Lestrade!” Sherlock roared, shooting to his feet. “How _dare_ you patronize me!”

John stood instantly, coming forward. “Oi, Sherlock, calm down—“

“ _Hey!_ ” Lestrade barked in Sherlock’s face, standing as well and leaning over the table. “Nobody’s patronizing you, all right?”

“You _are!_ ” Sherlock stormed, pulling his blue dressing gown closer around him and looking at them each in turn. “You are. All of you are.” He was trembling faintly all over now, though whether it was the disease or this conjured rage, John couldn’t tell. 

“We are, are we?” John said, nodding. “How do you figure that?”

Sherlock wiped at his face. “Lestrade and his fake case--”

“Sherlock, it’s not a fake case,” Lestrade nearly shouted. “Christ, man, what the hell’s gotten into you?” 

Sherlock ignored him. “You—“ He jerked a nod toward Irene. “Sitting there looking smug and letting me _win._ ”

“Oh rubbish,” she said, re-crossing her legs and relaxing in the chair. “If you stopped to think on that for _one_ second you’d know two things – I always look smug, for starters. And I’d never let you win at _anything._ ”

Sherlock had begun to sweat, his hair going dark around his forehead, his temples. “And _you_ …” He looked at John with a furious glint in his eye.

John crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, go on. What have I done?”

Sherlock just looked at him, breathing harder now, his gaze locked with John’s. 

“Go on,” John said again, but he said it softer, and he couldn’t help the hurt that seeped in.

Everyone held still, Lestrade still standing across from him, hands on his hips. 

Sherlock reached up with both hands, covered his eyes. Then he smoothed both hands up his forehead, slicking his dampening hair back. 

“Nothing,” he said softly. His face had gone pale beneath the flush. “Nothing.” 

Lestrade was trying to compose his face to something neutral, but he just looked like a cross between shocked and stricken. Irene hadn’t moved, still leaned back in the chair and regarding him impassively. 

“Right,” John said gently. “All right then.” 

Sherlock looked at Lestrade, his arms falling limply to his sides. “I am sorry to have raised my voice to you, Lestrade.” 

Greg shrugged, forced a weak laugh. “Not the first time,” he said wryly. “Nothing to worry about.”

Sherlock nodded, looking down. “If you will excuse me,” he mumbled, then turned and went to his room, closing the door behind him.

Lestrade turned to John, and now the grief did show on his face. “Christ, John,” he said softly, coming forward. “What the hell was that?”

John ran a hand through his own hair, rubbing it down in the back. _Fuck…_

“The abnormal cells…” He took a deep breath, let it out. “The cancer, it’s in his central nervous system now.”

“In his _brain?_ ” Lestrade asked, gaping.

John nodded. “I’m sorry for what he said,” John said softly. “He’s…not quite himself. He--“ He could feel it welling up in him as he tried to put it into words.

“S’all right,” Lestrade replied, saving him from having to go on. “Don’t worry about it.” He started gathering the photos, tucking them back in their envelope. 

“Ta,” John said softly, and meant it. Greg was a good friend. 

Once Greg had gathered his things, he headed for the door. “I’ll come back without a case. We can find a film, a match, something on the tele.” 

“You can leave the case,” John offered. “He’ll look at it on his own.”

“Na,” Lestrade said, opening the door. “You know, his mind might not be as affected as you’re afraid. We _have_ actually already solved the thing.” 

Then he winked and was out the door as John shook his head with a smile and Irene laughed.

*

That night, Iarla began seizing. They called John in after midnight. He slipped out while Sherlock was dozing, curled beneath the covers in a clutch of cotton and heavy blankets and soft sheets.

Two hours later, Iarla’s seizures under control and Mick’s fury attended to with cups of shite coffee and a long talk in the visiting lounge on the floor, John made it back to the flat. He stripped off his clothes, not even bothering with pajamas as he climbed into the bed.

“Wha--?” Sherlock called, shaken from sleep as John climbed into the bed. He was facing toward the dresser, away from John, and he started to turn. 

“Nothing,” John murmured, spooning up behind him to hold him place. He draped an arm over Sherlock’s waist. “Go back to sleep.” 

They didn’t sleep. Instead, a slow push of hips, a craned neck. Sleepy eyes meeting sleepy eyes. Then the unspoken decision, the familiar rhythm and relief of lips and tongues and breath, and clothes shifting, and then warm skin on warm skin.

But something had grown unfamiliar in it this time, and a long time later, John reached up and took Sherlock’s face between his hands, clenched Sherlock’s hips with his thighs to still him.

“Shhh…” he soothed. “Shh….it’s okay. Come here.” He started to roll Sherlock off him slowly to the side.

“No,” Sherlock bit out, eyes clenched in concentration, frustration. “No, just let me--“ His hips surged forward again, his chest heaving. His cock was limp against John’s, his body shaking. 

John shook his head, leaned up, kissed Sherlock’s cheek, his soaked forehead. “Sherlock, shhh…come on. It’s all right. Ease off…”

And Sherlock went, over on his back, John propped on his elbows over him, shaking his head at the whispered apologies, kissing him slowly and softly, and completely unsurprised – relieved in fact – when the tears burst in.

*

Then that day. Sherlock composing, the frantic rhythm of a fast piece, the jerking motion of the bow across the strings, notes building, Sherlock stopping between to scribble the notes down at the music stand.

Irene had just arrived. It was late afternoon. She had brought Sherlock a new shirt, sky blue. It was draped over the back of his chair and she was making a fresh pot of tea in the kitchen.

John was in his chair, watching Sherlock’s back. The song was making him uneasy, the notes seeming mismatched somehow, as though they were arguing. Sherlock’s hand was shaking as he leaned close to write the notes.

“Sherlock, you okay?” John called softly, setting the book he was pretending to read down. 

Sherlock ignored him, standing again. He set the violin under his chin, straightened his back. He began to play. 

The notes stuttered, stuttered again. His bow arm faltered on a stroke. 

What happened next was so sudden John didn’t realize it had happened until it was done. 

First, Sherlock screamed the word _fuck_ at the top of his lungs, which was shocking enough given that Sherlock hardly ever cursed. He heard Irene gasp from the kitchen at the suddenness of the sound.

Then the violin was out of Sherlock’s hands, flying across the room toward the bookcase with enough force to splinter it to pieces against the shelves.

“Oh God,” Irene called from the kitchen, “Sherlock, your Strad!”

John felt like something in him had broken as well. But then Sherlock curled his arms over his head, the bow dropping as he began to sink, trembling.

“Irene!” John shouted, up and dropping the book, going to Sherlock and catching him just as the seizure hit Sherlock full force.

John lowered him quickly to the floor, pushed him onto his side, kicking furniture out of the way, calling to Irene (who’d appeared beside him) to move the table and chairs and then to call 999 right way.

A high keening was rising from Sherlock’s throat. His eyes were wide and unblinking, and his chin was suddenly covered with a bloody froth. John did what he could to protect Sherlock's head, murmuring to him, soothing, even though Sherlock could likely not hear him. John could hear Irene on the phone.

“Get my phone,” he called to her as the keening began to grow fainter, the wet breaths hissing in and out of Sherlock’s mouth gradually slowing. His arms and legs had stopped thrashing, though John could still see every muscle corded in his forearms, his shoulders, his neck.

John was looking for something to put under his head, anything.

And that’s when he saw it: the tiny eye of a camera tucked on the second shelf up from the floor, a red light faintly glowing on it like an eye.

Not Mycroft. They’d been quite clear with him about surveillance and he had agreed to honor the request. John believed him, still did.

Then who--?

_Oh, you fucking **bastard** …_

Sherlock was growing more still, just a slight jerk, his head limp on the floor. His eyes blinked, unseeing. John looked at him then back at the camera as Irene knelt on Sherlock’s other side, John’s phone offered in her hand.

“Hold his head,” John growled, and then he rose and went across the room, crouching down in front of the camera. He plucked it out from where it was hidden in a hole in the shelf, staring into the tiny eye. Its wireless transmitter protruded from the back like a tiny tail.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” John snarled into it, standing and facing Sherlock and Irene, panting. “ _Well, are you, you sadistic son of a **bitch**?_ ” 

It was useless, but it felt good to say it, to finally have someone to confront, someone to--

In his hand, his phone buzzed with a text. He looked down at the screen.

_Very much so, yes._

John looked at the camera, at the text. He looked at Irene, whose face was a mask of shock, her breathing panicked and fast. Sherlock was silent now, limp and heaving ragged breaths.

 _Okay…_ John thought, willing the fury, the fear, down.

“What do you want?” he said straight into the camera. “Tell me what you want.”

A beat. The phone buzzed again.

_If I tell you, Dr. Watson, will you give it to me?_

There was no question. “For his life? Yes.”

The phone buzzed. 

_Anything?_

John stared into the camera, nodded. “Yes. Now what the bloody hell do you want?”

A beat, then one word. 

_You._

 

**

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER SEVEN.


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

 

The first thing John noticed as he came up from the depths of sleep was that it was morning, the bright white light of it washed across his face. The second was a strangely familiar smell – something sweet in it, something salty and warm. It was almost the opposite of the leather and wood and car exhaust notes of Baker Street. 

He opened his eyes.

White walls, white light. Spare room with only a bed and a dresser and a night stand. Nothing on any surface, nothing on the walls. It was as though the room had come from a kit, assembled and ready for an occupant. It made his bedsit in London look intimate.

He turned to the window, saw a sky too blue, too vast. He heard the sea, and then he placed the smell, the feel of that light.

_Tunis._

It was as if the moment John placed his surroundings, his _there-ness_ , he was suddenly aware of his body again, the ache of it, the heaviness in his head ( _drugged,_ he thought). When he shifted, he realized with a sudden flush that he was lying beneath a thin white sheet wearing nothing but his pants. 

That he did not like, and it was enough for him to slowly push his sore body into a sitting position on the side of the bed, facing a closed door at the far end of the room. 

He scrubbed at his hair, his chest, trying to clear the clay-like feeling in his head. His upper arm had the characteristic stinging ache of an injection site. And the back of his left hand was covered with a piece of gauze and a wide strip of medical tape, the bruised stiffness of an injection – or an IV – there, as well.

 _Okay…_

He took a deep breath, let it out, closing his eyes, forcing himself to concentrate. It floated back in a haze: Sherlock on the floor in the flat, the bloody froth of a bitten tongue and force of sound from his throat during the seizure, the camera. Shouting, his vision nearly tinted red with the rage, straight into the tiny camera, demanding to know what Moriarty wanted…

 _You._

He’d been panting from adrenaline, fear and anger cresting in him. Irene was watching him from where she knelt on the floor, still holding Sherlock’s head. 

Then he remembered holding the camera even closer to his face when he snarled his reply:

“Then come and fetch me, you son of a bitch.” Then he’d thrown the camera down hard and crushed it beneath the heel of his shoe.

His phone had buzzed again. _Out front, if you please._

John had swallowed, forcing his breath to slow. “Okay…okay…”

He remembered Irene’s face, the horror on it as she realized what he was agreeing to and asked: “What the bloody _hell_ are you playing at?” He remembered not paying a bit of attention to her as she kept talking, too busy getting as close to Sherlock as he could there on the floor on his knees. He remembered wiping at the blood on Sherlock’s chin as he held his face between his hands, then the long kiss he pressed to Sherlock’s forehead as his thumbs stroked his cheeks. 

“I love you, you git,” he’d said softly, fiercely, holding his forehead against Sherlock’s. “Don’t ever forget that, yeah? I’ll be back soon.” 

Sherlock’s eyes had been lolling, unable to focus, the seizure leaving him disoriented. His mouth was moving, but no sound came out.

“You are _not_ leaving this flat,” Irene snapped.

John stood, his hand trailing on Sherlock’s arm. “Not up for bloody discussion—“

“He will _kill_ you, John!—“

“ _Irene, shut it!_ ” John roared over her. He could hear a siren far off in the distance, then a second. “Right, okay, listen to me. I want you to take care of him.”

“No,” Irene said, shaking her head and standing. “Let me help you, let me--”

“Please don’t argue with me about this,” John cut in, his voice cracking suddenly, and he remembered the tears nearly coming then, already feeling the absence that was coming. The _lack_ …

“John—“

“I want you to take care of him for me,” he said firmly, his voice back in rein. “Can you do that, Irene? Please.”

They’d stared each other down for a few beats, the sirens coming closer still. Finally she jerked a single nod, gritting her teeth as she did so, and, after one more long look at Sherlock, he’d swallowed down the grief of it and gone for his coat.

He remembered getting into the expected black sedan with its black windows. Two men inside, neither of them Moriarty, and quick but violent tussle as they slammed him to the floor. Then the prick to his arm and the lights all went out.

He pushed the sheet from his hips, looked down at his body, checking for other damage. A bruise on his knee, still red and going faintly blue at the edges.

The pants he wore were crisp white with a wide waistband, new. Not his. He suddenly liked all this less and less. 

Sliding his feet to the floor, he stood, went to the door. Locked. 

“Hello?” he called. The sound echoed in the empty room. Nothing. No sound from the hallway at all.

He went looking for his clothes, found only empty drawers. Not in the closet either. What _was_ in the closet was a suit and a pair of new black shoes with soft, pricey socks tucked neatly beneath the tongues. The suit was navy blue, the shirt crisp white and fine. The blue silk tie probably cost as much as John would typically spend on a pair of trousers and a shirt combined. 

All in his size, the clothes tailored to a tee. 

His mouth went a bit dry as he realized he’d been measured at some point in the night, probably at the same time his clothes had been stripped and his pants replaced with these, a price tier above even what Sherlock wore.

John looked at the suit for a long time. _He’s just mucking with your head,_ he told himself. _You’ve been stripped probably ten times or more in your life in hospital. What’s the difference then?_

But it did feel different, because it was intended to. It was a power play, meant to throw him off balance, just as the location was, just as the drugs had been. 

_Well, that game stops right here then…_ And he closed the closet door.

No towels in the bathroom. That left him standing in the middle of the room, hands on his hips in just what he had on when the door snicked to unlock and then opened. Through the doorway came the man he was certain was James Moriarty and two lean but decidedly lethal looking men.

“Captain Watson,” Moriarty said, and John matched the voice to the one in his memory, the man who’d brought him the strange flowers in the hospital and confronted Irene, Mycroft, and Sherlock there by his bedside while he pretended to sleep. 

“Dr. Watson’s more correct, as I’m sure you know,” John replied, watching Moriarty’s eyes flick over his body, then back to his face.

“Oh, I think _Captain_ is much more correct, don’t you?” Moriarty asked, stepping forward with an outstretched hand and a cordial smile. 

“I don’t think so,” John said, smiling stiffly. He looked down at Moriarty’s hand for a long beat, debating. 

“James Moriarty,” Moriarty said, holding the hand steady. “Though I’m sure you’ve gathered that by now.” When John didn’t move, he offered the hand a bit closer. “Surely we can be civilized, Captain.” 

John’s eyes narrowed. He ran his tongue over his lower lip, anger creeping in at the way Moriarty was working him. He would have to decide quickly what to acquiesce to and what to resist, and it was going to be difficult to tell – at least initially – which was which. 

Finally he took Moriarty’s hand and gave it a hard squeeze. Too hard. Moriarty only smiled as the bones of his knuckles ground, a chuckle coming as he removed his hand from John’s grip. 

“Sorry,” John said. “Don’t know my own strength.”

“But I do,” Moriarty replied, something clearly fond in it. “I expected nothing less.” 

He withdrew to the chair by the window, sat, crossing his legs, the only dark thing in the room full of white.

“Was the suit not to your liking?” he asked, hand worrying the head of his walking stick. 

John turned to the side so he could see both Moriarty and his two silent men still standing near the door. “My own clothes are to my liking actually,” he replied evenly. “I’d like them returned.”

“Mm, no,” Moriarty said, feigning regret. “I’m afraid they were binned. It was easier to just cut them off you last night when you arrived, for starters, and besides…just cheap stuff. You are, after all, a very handsome man, Captain Watson. You should have clothes that accentuate this fact rather than hide it.” 

John narrowed his eyes again, glancing at the men by the door again. The words, and the appraising look that accompanied them, made a crawl start up the back of his neck. 

“What do you want, Mr. Moriarty?” he asked softly. Anger was creeping in. “Because I’m really not interested in a game with you right now.”

“Of course you are, Captain,” Moriarty replied. “You and I have been playing a game for months now. Much longer if you include your time with my son. You are simply more aware of it now.” He brushed at imaginary lint on his trousers. “Tell me: when was the first time Sherlock showed symptoms?”

“I’m not giving a play-by-play on your own bloody illness,” John said angrily. 

“No, it’s important,” Moriarty replied, hands making a calming gesture. “Really. What was the first time you had an _inkling_ something might be wrong?”

 _It’s important…_ John blew out a breath, thought back, remembered the plate-sized bruise on Sherlock’s back he’d found that morning, all those months ago. 

“January,” he replied. “Late January. Though I didn’t…recognize it at the time.” 

Moriarty nodded, deep in thought. “And yesterday was his first seizure?”

“You know it was,” John bit out. “You’ve had a front-row seat on our lives, clearly.”

“Oh, not _all_ the time,” Moriarty tsked. “Someone’s kept an eye, naturally, but I had to stop looking in too often myself.” He made a distasteful face. “At least half the time I switched on the feed, the two of you were having _sex_ \--“ 

“We enjoy each other, yes,” John cut in. He meant it to sound dismissive, matter-of-fact, but now he was blushing. He cursed his pale skin and straightened his back. 

“You more than enjoy each other, don’t you?” Moriarty ventured, cocking his head at John. “Sherlock _loves_ you. And you love him.”

John looked to the side, hands on his hips again as he shifted his weight. “Not your business.” It came out monotone, and soft. 

But Moriarty seemed to be warming to the topic now instead. “Why do you think that is? That he loves you?” He had that same dreamy tone is his voice along with something urgent, as though he’d been dying to ask the question.

“No idea,” John lied. The words were clipped.

Moriarty ignored him. “It’s changed him, I’m told. He’s weak now, isn’t he? More—“

“Yes, yesterday was his first seizure,” John interrupted, voice rising. He glared.

Moriarty stopped in mid-sentence, returning John’s gaze. He seemed…disappointed. Something. Perhaps the first tinge of anger. 

_Tread lightly,_ John thought to himself, trying for detachment, control.

“Ah,” Moriarty said quietly at last. He sniffed, shifted in his seat. “Well then…not much time left. He’s in the second-to-last stage.”

John grew more still, his mouth going dry. “And the last stage?” 

“Pain,” Moriarty said the word like a caress, but his eyes were burning into John’s now. “As the bone marrow is destroyed. Terrible pain.” He was shaking his head in what could be seen as regret, but there was a dance in his eyes. “Poor bastards die in agony. It’s quite the scene.”

John swallowed. “But you can stop it,” he said, keeping his voice level. “Cure it.” 

Moriarty smiled. “Of course,” he said, and John waited, but Moriarty didn’t elaborate. 

John stared back into those wide, wet eyes. The words and Moriarty’s tone sickened him. He blew out a frustrated breath. “Mr. Moriarty, you offered an exchange. Here I am. Now what do you want from me?”

Moriarty uncrossed, re-crossed his legs. The pleasure was gone from his expression. “I want you to put on the suit.” Too soft. The menace was there now.

John chewed his lip, looking at Moriarty, then out the window at the Mediterranean beyond, at the two men by the door. 

_Fuck…_

He put on the suit.

 

**

 

The stained glass windows that lined the marble hallways were flooded with light. It warmed the back of his black shirt, his trousers, the sun feeling almost like a touch on his bare skin. 

Up ahead, the library’s doors were open wide, the smell of old books beckoning with its notes of vanilla and grass. He knew what he would find within: walls of books from floor to the high, high ceilings, a fire in the hearth. The chair in the center of the room, his father’s, an old and oily black pipe on the table to its side.  
Even as he thought this, he smelled the tobacco’s spice.

_Sherlock._

A woman’s voice. Familiar. He stopped just outside the library, looking around. 

“Leave me be,” he called into the hallway. His voice echoed. 

_I know, love. I know you’re comfortable where you are..._

Something warm on his forehead. Something warm and small moving across the bottom of one foot.

“No,” he called, adding, more softly: “Please.”

 _Sherlock, we need you to help us,_ the voice went on. _Will you help us?_

His body seemed to be conjured from the warm, sunlit air, starting with the hand on his forehead. Eyes flickering beneath their lids, mouth dry. His neck felt as though it had been wrenched from his shoulders. Up from his foot, sharp aches bloomed in his joints as though from extreme overuse. 

He took in a deep breath as the rest of his body came back to him. As he let the breath out, even his chest ached.

“That’s it,” the woman’s deep voice said from close by. Irene. He could smell her perfume. “Come to us. You’ve been in there long enough for now.”

He let out what was, even to him, an undignified groan. He heard it _outside_ his head now. He smelled the antiseptic, listened to the hisses, the quiet beeping.

“John?” he whispered. His hand twitched.

“Shhh…” Irene said, stroking his hair back. “It’s all right.” 

The thumb moving over his foot curled around, the hand squeezing gently. Sherlock opened his eyes, saw Mycroft standing there. He blinked. Something very wrong in the expression on his brother’s face.

“John.” He found his voice this time, but he’d grown very still. 

“Gone,” Mycroft said gravely. “With Moriarty.”

“’Gone?’” Sherlock began to sit up, but his back wouldn’t hear of it. Neither would his head. The room spun on its axis. “Where…?”

“I am locating him,” Mycroft replied firmly. His hand had not moved, and his grip had tightened. Not _I have located…_ … 

“How did he--?” That was it. The nausea was rising with the emotion. Sweat sprang out all over him, and he was vomiting before he was even aware it was happening. 

_God, humiliating…_ he hissed in his mind. 

“Side, get him on his side,” he heard Mycroft bark. 

Hands on him, rolling him. Irene pushing a towel under his head. She called a nurse, one hand still on his head. Mycroft was behind him, a hand on his hip, the other on his forehead. It was like being a child again. He detested it with the heat of the sun.

“Ach, God—“ he choked. The area beneath his ribs on the left seared with pain. It was a swollen weight beneath his hand as he heaved again. 

He closed his eyes. More hands. New voices. Fumbling with his IV, someone stroking his back. Something about an antiemetic. Towels moving, fresh ones replacing them. 

“Christ!” The word burst out of him as loud as he could manage it, all the frustration and the utter _indignity_ of this in it. _Mycroft holding his head, for **God’s sake** …_

John with James Moriarty. John gone. And him lying here like a _bloody invalid_ \-- 

Then, everything was dark and quiet and painless again as he blacked out.

 

**

Mycroft Holmes was accustomed to being alone. It was one of the constants of his life, and given how much he typically had to think about – and the scope and ramifications of many of those things – he welcomed the solitude as a general rule.

His mother, before her death, had once wondered whether he was lonely. He could still feel the cool, gentle touch of her hand on his arm in the garden of his parents’ house as she’d asked. He’d touched her hand and reassured her that solitude and loneliness were entirely different things – one chosen, one not. He chose his aloneness, and he had never felt truly isolated in it.

Until this moment, he realized, sitting on his own in a private waiting room, his head in his hands, his mobile phone pressed up against his forehead.  
The one thing his mother had asked of him before her death – that he protect his younger brother from harm – and he was failing her. Despite all he’d put into place, despite all his concern, his vigilance, here they were. Sherlock down the hallway, slipping through Mycroft’s fingers. 

And Sherlock also counting on Mycroft – whether he was aware of it or not – to find the most important thing in Sherlock’s world and bring it back to him again.

And if Mycroft could not save Sherlock’s life, if it was too late for that, then he would at least not _fail_ his brother in this task. 

He sighed deeply, squeezing the phone, willing it to ring. Three deaths so far. Iarla Brennan dangling by a gossamer thread. Sherlock—

The phone rang.

“Go ahead,” he said without prelude as the call connected. 

“We think we’ve found the vehicle, sir,” came the voice on the other end. Hayes, one of his better operatives. 

“What’s taken so long?” He couldn’t help it coming out of his mouth. It had been more than three hours.

“Apologies, Mr. Holmes, but the car was driven into a lorry in an alleyway where surveillance cameras had been disabled. It made it exceedingly difficult to track until we’d worked that out.”

Mycroft sighed. “And?”

“We’ve tracked it to Gatwick. We’re looking at the private flights and have narrowed it to three.”

“Destinations?” Mycroft snapped.

A pause. “Zurich, Tunis, and New York.” 

Mycroft sat up, rubbing at his brow. Irene had told him what John had said in the flat, how he’d asked Moriarty what he wanted. _Then come and fetch me,_ he’d said…

Moriarty wanted John. He was attacking on a personal front, splitting them apart. He’d managed to get John to come willingly. What had he been promised? What was his game—

_John._

“Tunis,” he said into the phone, tumblers falling into precise place. 

After a beat: “We can have an extraction team on the ground in—“

“No, no,” Mycroft interrupted. “Give no indication that we’ve discovered the location. Move a Level 5 Surveillance Team to the embassy in Tunis. We need to gain access to all security feeds.”

“Yes, sir,” Hayes replied.

“With all haste, if you please, Mr. Hayes,” Mycroft said gravely. “We may be quite short on time.” 

“Of course, Mr. Holmes,” Hayes replied. “I’ll contact you again the moment they’re in the air.”

Mycroft ended the call, set the phone on the couch beside him. Then he leaned forward again, elbows on his knees, hands cradling his forehead again, a solitary – a _lonely_ – figure in a silent room as night began to fall.

 

**

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER EIGHT.


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

 

Growing up, Sherlock had never really had _friends._ Anyone who knew him would not find this a shocking revelation, of course. He had been arrogant from the start, arguing with his mother from the time he could speak, impatient with anyone who’d attempted to explain things to him, and frankly baffled at the concept of doing activities _with_ other people. Other people slowed him down, made tasks take longer than they should, holding him up from the next big _thing_ he wished to learn or do.

He’d eventually learned to keep to himself, and keep to himself he had. Even from his own parents. His father had been a distant, authoritarian force in his life who chiseled Mycroft into his image. He often caught his mother watching him wherever they went together —Sherlock inevitably off away from whatever _others_ she’d try to mingle him with, a book in hand or a specimen of some type (leaf, insect) cupped in his hands. She looked fond and sad and concerned when he looked up at her, sensing her watching him, and then he turned away.

He realized now, sitting in the chair by the hospital room’s window, that all the time alone had ill-prepared him for many things. The friendships he’d managed to maintain since his life with John began – Lestrade, Molly, Mrs. Hudson, Stamford – which felt sometimes like a tug-of-war between frustration and the warmth of what he now knew was termed _fondness._ The worry that came along with that, the sense of responsibility, the urge to protect. 

And _love_ was certainly proving to have its difficulties – John, to some extent Irene. Sometimes he felt like Irene lived somewhere deep in him like a tiny seed, sunk deep. Sometimes he felt as though John had grown so vibrant and alive in him that he was in danger of John bursting through his skin. 

But this new feeling, to this degree at least, he was completely lost in, having never experienced it.

Iarla Brennan was dead, and the maelstrom in him was something he could not seem to parse or even tolerate.

It was Stapleton who’d come in to tell him just after midday, Irene standing by the head of the bed, standing close. She’d been on her mobile off and on, tapping away, as he’d stared in silence at the television, seething since the night before. John gone since the afternoon before. John with Moriarty a day and a night. John—

“Mr. Holmes,” Stapleton had said as she’d entered. It took a moment for him to look at her, until Irene rose from the chair and stood beside him. He watched her thin throat move as she swallowed, looking at Stapleton as she came to the side of the bed. He understood now that Irene already knew.  
He didn’t greet her. He was sunk too far deep in himself. He simply turned his head to look at her as she said it ( _Iarla Brennan is dead._ ), and then tried to look through her, another weight settling onto him. She was saying something about Iarla’s partner being with him when he died, something about his _good spirits._

“I don’t believe he was in pain in the end,” Stapleton had said. 

Sherlock was staring at her throat, and he could see her eyes flicking to Irene’s with concern in the silence that followed. Irene’s hand slid down and wrapped around his forearm beneath the lines of the IV.

“Sherlock?” she murmured. 

“Yes,” he said automatically. He could hear it coming out of his mouth. He didn’t recall thinking it, willing himself to speak. “Yes, go on. There’s something else.”

Stapleton returned her gaze to his face and he did his best to look back. “Yes, some good news, I think. It’s not cancer at all. It’s a virus. We think one that’s genetically engineered.” He could tell she was more comfortable here, in this talk of microscopic things. He felt a kinship with her awkwardness in dealing with him, The Patient. 

“Grand,” he heard himself murmur distantly. Irene squeezed his arm. It was good news to someone then.

Stapleton went on. “Isolated it just this morning, in fact. So we’re going to be doing an autopsy on Mr. Brennan, concentrating our efforts on his bone marrow. It appears that the virus concentrated its effects there, causing the symptoms we’ve been seeing. We believe that being able to examine the marrow at the end stage of the disease in him and the other fatalities may help us to better understand its mechanisms—“

“Yes, very good.” That voice that sounded like his was speaking again. He was vaguely aware that it had cut her off. She’d stopped talking. When he closed his eyes for a beat he could see the corridor in his mind, a huge door at the end of it. It beckoned him.

“I’m…sorry,” Stapleton said, and he opened his eyes again, looking down at her hand as she touched his arm. “I shouldn’t be speaking so…clinically about this. Not so soon. I gather he was your friend.”

Sherlock had shook himself back into the moment then. “I don’t have friends,” he replied. An old phrase. A reflex. “I need to see the information on the virus. Will you show it to me?”

Stapleton looked at Irene over him again, who shook her head a fraction and said, quite clearly, _leave it_ with her eyes. _Leave Iarla. Leave sentiment._

“Of course,” Stapleton had said then. “I’ll have someone send it up for you.”

“Thank you.” It was a dismissal and she took it as such, withdrawing from the room. As the door closed behind her softly, he’d turned to Irene.

“I want you to sleep,” he said as firmly as his ruined voice could manage. Fatigue, vomiting from the pressure in his spleen…it made it difficult.

“I’m fine,” she said, thumb tracing his skin. 

He shook his head. “I want you to sleep. And I want some time to think. Please.”

She leaned closer, her long hair trailing close to his face. She pushed it behind an ear. “Mycroft has his security forces at every possible entrance and exit to this place. There’s no way for you to leave.” Her hand brushed his cheek.

He shook his head again. “I’m not trying to get rid of you so that I can make my escape,” he replied, his voice cracked, words spilling haltingly. “I can’t…I’m not strong enough to…I’m no use to John like this.” He turned his face away. It was like a painful bubble was rising in his chest, choking the air out of him. He felt his eyes burn.

“All right,” she soothed, thumb stroking his temple. “I’ll leave you for a bit. I’ll bring you back some proper tea.” She gave him a bittersweet smile. 

He jerked a nod, met her eyes, then let the gaze flick away again. _Control._ He had to maintain _control…_

With that, she gathered her purse and the shawl she’d brought to fight the room’s chill and left.

Sherlock had made it up the side of the bed then, his legs hanging down. The gray-striped pajama bottoms hung on him and as he stood, he had to hold them up on one side as they slid. Just a worn blue T-shirt up top, his bare arms cold, the IV trailing from the back of his hand. He’d pulled a white blanket from the bed, dragging it and his IV stand as he moved to the chair. There he slowly sat, then gathered the blanket onto his lap, half of it still trailing down.

An hour, two had gone by since then. His body had begun to ache as the sky began to fade from bright day to late afternoon. 

Iarla in his flat with its well-used furniture, its books, its stacks of papers, its fairy lights. Iarla coming up the stairs, his arm outstretched ( _Take it…_ ). Iarla on the plane to Germany, his blue eyes on Sherlock’s as he offered the syringe. 

_I know you don’t want it. But if you need it…_

Iarla standing beside Mycroft in his smart suit and his new authority, standing straight within himself at last.

Then John steadying Iarla as he reached for his coat and missed in the flat, the two of drunk and giggling like the obnoxious footballers they’d both apparently been, Sherlock rolling his eyes from his chair. 

_Honestly, you bring out the absolute **worst** in each other, it’s embarrassing…_

Iarla lying in his hospital bed. Mick, John, Sherlock – and perhaps Mycroft, he wasn’t certain – his only visitors.

Sherlock breathed out a long, pained breath, his eyes closing, his fists clenched on the arms of the chair. Pity and grief and anger rose in him, fury at his own utter _uselessness_ roiling. His breath caught in his throat, eyes clenching shut now as his fists began to shake.

John was gone, God only knows where, playing James Moriarty’s game, and the emptiness and rage and anguish that yawned in him with John’s absence was worse than any pain the disease could deal him.

Iarla Brennan was dead, and though Sherlock had never told him, he had been Sherlock’s friend. 

And if it was the last thing he did in this life, Sherlock would make sure that James Moriarty paid for _everything_ he had taken from him.

 

**

 

Night coming on now, and Mick Wheatley had spent most of the day lying on his back on the hotel room’s plush bed, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the faint sounds of traffic below. 

Now he was finally rolling up the last of his clothes into neat cylinders, stuffing each one forcefully into the bottom of his duffel. His leather shaving kit sat at the foot of the bed, his combat uniform hanging on the back of the closet door. He still wore jeans, a black T-shirt, bare feet. And in a rare breach of discipline, he’d removed his dog tags when he’d come back from the hospital, tossing them in the shaving kit bag. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had them off. But there in the bathroom, the shower steaming the room, he’d felt the sudden urge to be stripped as bare as he felt – stripped of his comrades, stripped of the identity he had with them, and now stripped of Iarla, as well. 

So he’d taken them off and tossed them in the kit. He’d gotten into the shower and then stood there until the water went cold, jerking with quiet sobs as he hadn’t done since he was a child.

When he’d gotten out, he’d left the tags there in the leather bag. And there they sat still. 

A soft knock on the door and he turned to look at it. He could guess who it was, but there wasn’t much time until his flight and he wasn’t in the mood for platitudes or someone _giving his respects._ He needed to turn back into himself, and _quick._

The knock came again and, sighing in frustration, he went to the door and opened it, revealing (as expected) Mycroft Holmes, hands sunk in his dark suit’s pockets. He looked positively funerary, right down to his expression and the pained smile on his face.

“Lieutenant Wheatley,” he said quietly. “If I may come in.” It wasn’t a request. He had something to say and he was going to say it, whether Mick wanted to hear it or not. 

Mick just looked at him, biting his lip. His Irish was coming up (as his father used to say)—he could feel the burning on the tips of his ears, heat rushing to his cheeks beneath the beard he’d just started on again. 

Mick flattened his back against the wall, staring straight ahead. He said nothing as Mycroft entered. The hallway was empty beyond (or appeared to be) and he closed the door hard.

Mycroft stopped beside the door to the bathroom, his hands still in his pockets, as he faced Mick. “Let me begin by telling you how very sorry I am.” 

Mick crossed his arms, letting that settle in a bit. “Yeah, thanks. That means a lot.” It came out with a steel edge. He watched Mycroft’s face shift into regret.

“I actually am quite sorry. Iarla was—“

 _No._ “Do you know what he said to me?” Mick sliced in, cutting the other man off. “Last night? Right before he went to sleep that last time?”

Mycroft looked down. “Lieutenant…”

“He said that he was _grateful_ to you and your brother.” The words were jamming up in his throat, making him sound choked. “He said that without you both, he would have never have gotten to be the man he was meant to be.” 

There it was, the breaking point. He would _not_ let the tears come. He felt a headache bloom to life as the anger hit his temples. Mycroft was looking at him, his face stricken, and all Mick wanted to do was put his fist through his face. 

Mick watched him swallow and went on, nodding. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said, fury under it. “I asked him how the _hell_ he could say that—“ He wiped at his face with a hand. “—when he was lying there in a hospital bed six _fucking_ months after meeting you two.’ And he said—“ He swallowed down the lump that had lodged there. “He said: ‘Better to have had six months living how I wanted to than never getting to live that way at all.’”

Mycroft pursed his lips. He nodded. “I’m…glad he felt the time had value,” he said softly. “I certainly valued him.” He was looking at Mick now, and even though Mick didn’t return the gaze, it bore into him. “He said more than that, however, didn’t he?”

Mick looked away. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Mycroft kept talking, the bastard. “It wasn’t just Sherlock, or me, that made the time worthwhile. It was you, as well.”

Mick felt his jaw clench down. He jerked a nod. “Yes.” And then he withdrew to the bed, gathering the rest of his things.

“Where are you going?” Mycroft asked from behind him. 

“Flight out at 9:30 tonight,” Mick grit out. “I’m going back to my team.”

Mycroft exhaled a long breath behind him. “No, I’m afraid not.”

He turned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Mycroft took a step toward him. “Iarla’s condition, and Sherlock’s and the others’, was caused by a virus.” 

“So?” He grit his teeth, still and staring.

“Dr. Stapleton believes the disease is transmitted through body fluids, similar to HIV.”

Mick gaped, a cold wave starting in his chest and moving through him. His fists clenched. “What…what are you saying to me?”

Mycroft kept his gaze steady. “You’ll have to stay here for study and treatment,” he said softly. “I’m very sorry.”

Mick had moved before he realized it, an arm across Mycroft’s chest, a forearm on his throat, pushing, shoving him back against the wall that separated the bathroom from the rest of the room. They both landed hard, Mycroft against the wall and Mick against him. 

He could feel the fragile bones in the older man’s throat against the muscles of his arm. He pressed in and watched the familiar flush rise, purpling Holmes’ face.

“Release me,” Mycroft rasped, a croak of sound, and Mick pushed in harder.

“Why the _fuck_ should I?” Mick snarled. “This is what _you_ do after all, isn’t it? Play fucking _games_ with people’s lives?” His voice was rising now. He was shouting into Mycroft’s face. He bore down with his forearm. “Well this is _my_ game, you son-of-a-bitch. How does it feel to be on the other side of it, Mr. Holmes? _How does it feel?_ ”

Mycroft held very still, looking down into his eyes. He didn’t speak, which infuriated Mick even more.

“I watched Iarla _die_ and I loved him.” He couldn’t help the flood of words, the tears. “I watched him die and he was in so much pain…and now you’re telling me this is…this is—“

“—Going to…happen to you…yes.” Mycroft whispered. His voice was a ruin. “Let me go.”

Mick’s lower lip trembled. He couldn’t move his arm. “I want to snap your neck. God, I want to _so badly…_ “

But instead he jerked his arm away, covering his face with both hands. It was a maelstrom in his head, all of it swirling. _God, I could have killed this man without even thinking. I could have…_

Mycroft was rubbing his neck now, straightening his suit. “Thank you,” he said, his voice still soft and hoarse. 

Mick stood back a step. He wiped at his eyes, the stubble on his face. He willed his mind to quiet, for his breath to ease. 

Mycroft, back to full composure, said: “I have spoken to your commanders in San Diego, to some members of the U.S. Joint Chiefs, to the Secretary of Defense. I’ve taken the liberty of having you reassigned to the U.N. Task Force dealing with this…situation.”

“Why?” Mick said quietly, hands on his hips. “I’m dying.”

Mycroft took a step toward him and reached out to touch him then, a gentle hand on his arm. “Not for some time. It will be months before you even begin to exhibit symptoms, I’m told.”

“Is that supposed to be comforting?” Mick asked. He was both amused and horrified.

“Only a bit,” Mycroft admitted. “But here is something that is: there _is_ an answer to this.” He said it softly and with conviction. “There is an answer that is waiting to be found. And a man like you…Navy SEAL, possessed of significant training and talents…well. Loyal. Capable of great _care_ … You would be an enormous asset.”

Mick looked up at Mycroft, into his face. He had never understood – not really – how Iarla had followed this man. Seeing what he saw there, he did.

“Would you like to help me find it, this answer?” Mycroft asked into the quiet. The words hung in the air.

Mick swallowed. “Yes.”

 

**

 

Morning in Tunis and John had finished his breakfast, selected _for_ him and brought on a silver tray. It was only the third time someone had come to him – Moriarty and his men, then two meals delivered. He’d eaten each time (the food good, well prepared, elegant in fact), and now he stood by the open window, looking out at the ocean, the sun rising.

The morning before he’d put on the suit in the bathroom, feeling for all the world like he was dressing for dinner with The Devil, like the fact that he’d put it on rather than stripping off the new pants and standing in front of Moriarty and his two men starkers had been an enormous tactical error. 

But Moriarty had not, to his knowledge, yet given him anything to help Sherlock. And until he did, he’d have to make an attempt to do as Moriarty wished.  
He’d come out in the suit and stood in the center of the room at perfect parade attention, his heels together, his arms at his sides, his hands fisted. He’d stared straight ahead, shoulders squared, chin and chest out. 

Moriarty had risen from his chair soundlessly and began to circle him, making pleased sounds. “Perfect,” he purred. “I knew it would be.”

John said nothing. He stood at attention as if for any other inspection. But unlike an inspection, he looked Moriarty straight in the eye as he stood in front of him.

“And the color brings out your eyes,” Moriarty said, a gleam in his own, a smile that showed his teeth coming to his lips. “Lovely. _So_ nice.”

John stared, his jaw hardening. Moriarty was scanning his face, his hair.

“You need a shave, however, and the hair needs a style and trim.”

“No.” A rumble of sound.

But Moriarty only smiled faintly. “We shall see.” He worried the top of his walking stick again, giving it a look, then meeting John’s eyes again. “Lunch is at 12:15.”

As Moriarty strode to the door, walking stick tapping beside him, John turned to face him. 

“Mr. Moriarty, I expect you to keep our agreement,” he said softly. “As I have done. I’ve given up my freedom for it.”

Moriarty gave him that same bland smile. “In the works, Captain. Patience.” The smile vanished. “And you’re not a prisoner here, you know. You’re welcome to leave any time you’d like.” 

Then he was gone, the door staying unlocked this time behind him.

_You’re welcome to leave…_

The words kept coming back to him as he stood there at the window, the view so similar to the view at Mycroft’s villa (up the beach a few miles, he’d calculated). It was _meant_ to remind him of that time. He was sure of that. 

The cage with the open door. The illusion of choice. The invocation of happier times. And now, isolation. Nearly a whole day and a night. No pajamas. One towel left with his dinner. One suit that he’d put on again with its stiff, new shoes.

This was about control. For what reason, John didn’t know. But he felt the _squeeze_ of it. Waiting for Moriarty to return had kept him in the room the night before; he hadn’t ventured out to explore the house. His sleep was disturbed. He was jangled, tense.

In fact, he started a bit when the door opened, turning, coming to attention. He hid the reaction as one of the Moriarty’s servants came in.

“Mr. Moriarty would like to see you, Captain Watson,” the man said. He was older, a Tunisian man in robes. His face was as impassive as the wall behind him. John took a breath, nodded, and followed him out the door.

The house was a maze of corridors, wide, marble floors. It was as white as the room he’d been staying in, no art on the walls. Wooden doors closed. No sounds but their footsteps. 

A lift at the end of the corridor with its wooden doors. As the doors opened, John nearly started at the red of the Persian rug on its small floor. It was the first burst of color he’d seen beyond the blue of his suit.

Up two floors. The servant had clearly had a great deal of practice at being invisible and said nothing. The doors slid open onto another bare corridor. The quiet continued as they went toward a heavy door at the end of the hallway, the servant knocking and waiting for the “enter” that answered. 

The door opened onto the opulence that John expected – Persian rugs, lavish oil paintings on the deep green walls. This room was as marked by its owner as the rest of the house was stark and devoid of warmth and personality. It smelled of oiled wood, antiques. Tobacco smoke (pipe? Hookah?), Tunisian spice and tea. Faint classical music bleeding from unseen speakers set into the walls.

Moriarty appeared to be alone, and he did not look up from where he sat in an armchair, facing both the window and a matching empty chair. Instead, he was staring at a tablet in his hand, a look of amused concentration on his face.

That’s when John heard the voice. Familiar, high, and halting, nattering nervously as usual.

_Molly…_

“Tell me,” Moriarty said as John came closer, the servant close behind. John’s eyes widened and his breathing picked up. “Who on earth _is_ this daft woman?”

He was pointing at the screen as he turned it toward John, who was now standing in front of him, panicked, wondering if Moriarty had taken her, if—

He snatched the tablet from Moriarty’s hands, holding it in both hands, holding it close and staring down.

Surveillance camera footage, the device concealed somewhere high in the ceiling over Sherlock’s bed, the camera’s eye staring down. A live feed—the time was stamped and running in the lower left corner. 

“I’m going to read you this one now, yeah?” Molly was saying. She was sitting beside Sherlock’s bed, her bulky, loose bag in her lap, files peeking out. There was another lying on the bed next to Sherlock’s still hand. 

John took him in, swallowing, fighting down anguish. Sherlock’s face was pale, and drawn, his hair mussed and damp at his temples and forehead from sweat. His pale eyes were open and fixed on some point just over Molly’s shoulder, hands and legs still. John knew that faraway look. Sherlock was deep in thought, all his energy focused inward.

_Mind Palace…_

Molly went on. “So I thought you’d like this one because there was something with the liver that was strange, a sort of toxin…”

John gripped the tablet hard. His teeth clenched, his lips narrowing. His breathing picked up.

“Why—“ His voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “Why are you—“ 

But he cut himself off. He shook his head. He felt the rage coming up like an explosion in his chest. The tablet was out of his hand and smashing into the cold mantle and then he was moving on Moriarty, a fist flying and catching Moriarty across the face, his other falling on the perfectly pressed shoulder of his black suit. 

Just then, a pair of large, freakishly strong arms crushed John around the chest, hauling him up and back, his feet leaving the floor. A sound of pure rage wrenched from him, his arms still grasping toward Moriarty, who was sitting stone-still, staring at him with one hand on his cheek and jaw and a thunderous, murderous look forming on his face. 

More men were coming in now, tussling him down. A blow to the belly knocked the wind from him, hands on his legs, his body sprawled out among them now. He kicked at them, screaming for them to let him go, then at Moriarty himself as the man rose from his chair.

“You sick bastard!” The grips of the men around him were growing tighter, his movements more constrained. “How _dare_ you sit here and watch him! How dare you turn him into your fucking _entertainment_ \--“ 

One of the men grabbed John’s face, clenching his jaw shut, as Moriarty came close, standing between the two men who held his legs. The look in his eyes brought John up a bit in his fury for a beat, but only for a beat. The image of Sherlock lying there, Moriarty there--

 _Fuck it,_ he thought, gathering himself, relaxing a bit so that the man loosened his grip a bit, allowing John to shift and bite down on the heel of the man’s hand, freeing his head. With that, he jerked forward and spit in Moriarty’s face.

Frothy, thick white on Moriarty’s beard, his hand reaching up in shock to wipe it away. The anger than John had seen there before was nothing compared to the transformation the man’s hard face went through now.

“No one touches me, Captain Watson,” he said with a dangerous sort of quiet in his voice. Steady. Unearthly so. “ _No one._ I’m going to make sure right now that you never forget that again.”

He looked at his men, nodding, and they shoved John roughly onto the floor with a jolt. Then they were on him, boots and knees and fists, everything rage and fury and pain until a jolt to the head sent him into darkness.

 

**

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER NINE.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience while I got my health sorted out over the summer. 
> 
> And now, on with the show. :-)

**CHAPTER NINE**

 

Gold sunlight seeping warm through the windows in the hallway, the high cathedral ceiling above echoing with the sounds of a bird’s wings. Sherlock there in the middle of the light, black shirt and trousers, his arms outstretched as he watched the raven high in the rafters. The sun was setting; he could tell from the color. The bird was seeking a place to rest for the night. 

As it vanished from sight, he felt a circle of cool air on his belly, as though someone had lifted a stifling blanket from him and cold air had rushed into its place. He felt the vanishing wet of an alcohol swab, then a sharp prick, just beneath this ribcage. His arms came down, his left covering the spot where the pain had bloomed, sharp and fast, then he was warm again.

_Something for the nausea, Mr. Holmes,_ someone was saying. A woman’s voice. He didn’t recognize it and he sluffed it off, out of his awareness again. 

Time passed outside the palace, he knew, but here it was sunset still, the gold orb’s light growing fainter as it slid into the horizon. 

He looked toward the library door, still open, the fire warm and inviting. His father’s chair and pipe. Pipe smoke that smelled faintly of cloves floating out. Already the formulas were beginning to form in his mind, from his mind, swirling above him in pentagons, hexagons, octagons, bonds forming in lines between them. At the heart of the swirl, the virus that Stapleton had isolated, its head like a crystal, its legs bracing it in mid-air, something churning inside it. 

The cloud of shapes, the maelstrom of colors, streamed toward the door to the library. He turned toward it, hand still covering the widening burn of the needle’s prick. He would go in and he would not come out until he had the answer, until—

Then, music. Off-kilter, off-tune humming. Something cool and rough stroking his face. “I’ll Be Seeing You.” Perfume with heavy notes of flowers dabbed on the wrists. Smelled familiar, like a quiet house. Like dark wood and an oven on. Like…

_Mrs. Hudson._

He could tell she’d moved to his arm now because her touch conjured it back into existence. She was stroking him with a flannel, his forearm, the crease of his elbow, the bony point of it. Blankets folded back. She was singing softly to herself now, the same song.

_I’ll find you in the morning sun and when the night is new…_

“Mrs. Hudson,” he said softly. It came out rusted. He did not open his eyes. 

“Just relax, Sherlock dear,” she replied lightly, moving his gown out of the way a bit to wash his shoulder, the base of his neck. “I’m sorry to wake you. You were sleeping so soundly.”

Now he did open his eyes and looked at her. Plum-colored cardigan, glasses on. She’d been at the hospital for some time and looked worn. The smile she gave him was bittersweet.

“Did you enjoy my singing there?” She tried for lightness. 

He shook his head. “Hideous…”

A tired chuckle bubbled from her. “Oh, _there_ you are, Sherlock,” she said fondly, and she reached up to stroke his stubbled cheek with her thumb. He closed his eyes and smiled faintly beneath her touch. He couldn’t help it.

“John.” He looked at her again as he said it. Only a bit of his voice made its way into it.

Her smile vanished. “No news, I’m afraid,” she said softly. “I’ve not seen Mycroft at all, and I’ve been here for hours now.”

This made him a blink a bit, both because his brother had been a tediously frequent visitor and the lapse was unusual, and because he had not realized he’d been in his Mind Palace for quite so long.

“Miss Adler?” 

Mrs. Hudson was folding the washcloth into a neat square. “I sent her back to the flat to sleep ages ago. She looked ready to drop, poor thing.” She fussed with basin and cloth, setting them on the night table. “Very devoted to you, isn’t she?”

Sherlock caught the whiff of disapproval in her tone and shook his head. “Before he went, John asked her to _care for me_ in his absence,” he said softly, the phrase tinged with some disdain. “He has never trusted her with anything before, so…I believe she is being particularly diligent.”

“As you say, dear, but I believe the girl has feelings for you. Quite strong ones, in fact.” She was covering him again carefully, smoothing the blanket down.

Sherlock’s lip quirked. “That she does.” 

He was saved from saying more when the door swung slowly open enough and Mycroft entered, all dark pinstripes and tired eyes. He exchanged a greeting with Mrs. Hudson, then sank his hands into his pockets as he stood beside the bed, looking down into Sherlock’s face. 

Mycroft’s eyes were unreadable, but his silence and the flick of his gaze to Mrs. Hudson were clear.

“Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock said, and his voice cracked. “If you could allow us a moment in private.”

“Of course, of course,” she said, rising. “I’ll just fetch us some tea.” She took her bag, looking from Sherlock to Mycroft as she left. Mycroft watched her go until she closed the door behind her.

“How do you feel?” Mycroft asked, returning his gaze to Sherlock’s.

He shook his head impatiently. “Unimportant. What have you found?” The imperiousness he was going for was lost as his voice cracked.

Mycroft sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, not touching Sherlock but close. “I have some idea where John is being kept.” 

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “As he’s not here at this moment, something is clearly preventing you from retrieving him.”

Mycroft looked down again, pushing out a frustrated breath. “Sherlock, we must tread carefully—“

“To the devil with _treading carefully,_ ” he snapped as best he could. “Unlike you, I am not afraid of James Moriarty, Mycroft. Even in the state I am, I can say that.” 

His implication of cowardice wasn’t lost on Mycroft. The older man’s face shot up, flushed, something dark flashing in his eyes. “Yes, and unlike _you,_ Sherlock, I have wider concerns than the lives of one man. Much must be in place before making a move against this man. Do not presume to know the best course in something you do _not_ understand.”

Now it was Sherlock’s turn to flush. Mycroft was, of course, right, but Sherlock would be damned before he’d let him know it.

“John is in Tunis, but we are having a difficult time pinpointing his exact location.”

_Tunis._ Sherlock slotted this new bit of information in, his eyes darting back and forth, his mind focused inward for a beat. Finally he spoke. 

“Moriarty knew where we were all that time,” Sherlock mused softly, his mind warming to the puzzle of it. “He’s using it against John, using his associations with the place. But to what end?” 

Mycroft shook his head. “I would assume in an attempt to unseat him in some way, make the familiar unfamiliar. Regardless, we do not know his exact whereabouts, though I assure you that once we do, I will begin formulating a plan for his extraction.”

“And how long will all that take, Mycroft?” Sherlock spat out the name like an obscenity.

Mycroft glared back. “Moriarty is much like a boxer with a very lethal knock-out punch, Sherlock. One wins against such an opponent by wearing down the body before going for the head.”

Sherlock grunted. “Is this foray of yours into the world of sporting metaphor meant to make me more at ease that John is with this man?” he asked, a hard edge still in his voice. “If so, I’m afraid it’s not having the desired effect.”

“It’s meant to remind you that this is an exceedingly complicated situation. James and I are on a road with no turns at this juncture, and what happens between us now will have far-reaching effects well beyond just our small circle of concern.”

Sherlock shook his head. “I will not sacrifice John as a pawn.”

Mycroft met his gaze, his eyes growing warmer, somehow harder. “John Watson is no pawn to me, Sherlock,” Mycroft said quietly. 

Sherlock swallowed. He felt something turning uncomfortably in his chest. 

“Thank you,” he whispered, and at the hint of a smile on one corner of Mycroft’s mouth, Sherlock flushed and turned away. 

 

* 

He was still thinking about all this as night fell outside the window, the sun vanishing behind the buildings and a blue glow taking over the sky. As it grew darker, he flipped on the television ( _Top Gear_ ), the sound muted, the colors flickering softly around the room. 

The dots of light came on in the city outside. His body was heavy with pain. His hips, his legs. Thankfully the bloat of his spleen had lessened, the nausea gone for the moment. The telemetry hummed from its nest of wires on his chest. It was quiet enough that he could hear the IVs drip.

_Intolerable,_ he said to himself. And this time he meant it. Lying there like that was like slowly sinking in quicksand. 

Sighing heavily, he closed his eyes, turned his attention back to the problem at hand. But the more he tried to think about it, the more frustrated he felt himself becoming. He would bring Tunis to the forefront of his mind, and instead of turning over the pieces of it and examining them, he would instead see Tunis itself, the house there.

John coming up the beach from the water. Or John over him later for the first time in their wide, white bed.

It was hard to blink away the images and sensations that bloomed in him. Doing so had begun a tumult in his mind, the way his intelligence warred against his emotions making him feel as if he were tumbling underwater after being crushed by a wave.

_Concentrate,_ he scolded himself, and he could feel his brows knitting down hard. 

What did Moriarty want with John? It was more than an attempt to strike at Sherlock, more than a simple power play. He was _unseating_ John, as Mycroft had said, yes. Making _the familiar unfamiliar._ But that would not be enough for Moriarty to go to such lengths.

_To what end?_

“Love, I’m going for some tea.”

The words sounded very far away, drifting into his awareness. He turned his face towards the sound.

Irene. He’d forgotten she was there. She was standing close, white shirt and sand linen trousers, a small smile on her face. He blinked at her slowly as he searched her face, anchoring to her, coming back to himself again. 

Time seemed to slow, stretch.

A hand on his arm. Irene was leaning down now. She pressed a kiss to his forehead, pulled back but stayed close. “You’re going away from me, aren’t you?” she asked softly.

“Not from you.” He tilted his chin up to see her better there in the small circle of light from the side table’s lamp. “I need time to think. There’s something I’m missing.”

“About what?” Her brows had creased down.

“All of this.” He swallowed, shaking his head, closing his eyes tight. “It’s…” 

And there behind his eyes, the door to the library was wide open, the smell of the fire coming to him. The outline of the virus floated in a geometry of white lines in midair by the door, the shapes of chemicals bonding and unbonding, a swirl…

“Tell me,” she urged quietly, her hand just touching his hair on the pillow now.

His breathing picked up. It was as though now that he’d spoken what he was feeling aloud, the frustration welled in him, anger simmering, his voice rising. “I don’t know how to say it plainer than that I am _missing something._ ” Agitation prickled through him like a current on his skin. John and the virus. It was all becoming muddled in his head.

“All right…” She leaned closer, her tone soothing as she stroked down his hair. “Shhh…it’s all right. You’ll sort it out.” 

But the words were rolling from him now in his ruined voice. “The connection to Tunis is obvious, but simply destroying the significance of the place is too easy, too simple—“

“Sherlock,” Irene said more firmly. 

Even her sharp tone didn’t get through to him. But the door to his room creaking open, the tapping on it, did. Lestrade entered into the near dark.

“Hiya,” he said, an awkward smile on his face, his hands sinking into his pockets. “Hope it’s not a bad time?”

Sherlock was quiet now, though his chest rose and fell too fast still. He took in Lestrade’s appearance. _Poor sleep. Strain._

“Not at all,” Irene said, straightening and stepping back from the bed. “I’d say it was perfect timing.” Sherlock saw her cock an eyebrow at Lestrade, who came forward now, forcing a wider smile onto his face. 

“Hadn’t heard from Mycroft today,” Lestrade ventured, trying for casual. “Thought I’d see if he was about.”

“Nothing on John,” Irene supplied softly. 

Lestrade nodded, his expression falling a bit. Sherlock saw him glance at Irene, give her a softer but no-less-awkward smile. 

_God, the horrible niceties and this glandular game…_ Sherlock rolled his eyes and looked away, toward the window, the wardrobe, the tele—

His hands gripped the bars, his eyes widening. He felt a jump in his chest.

“Sherlock, what is it?” Irene asked. 

He heard them both gasp, a shocked _Jesus_ seeping from Lestrade as he let out the breath. 

There on the screen, the pixilated image from a security camera. A figure, nude, lying in a fetal position on a white floor.

“John…” Sherlock breathed.

 

***

_Cold…_

The first thought John had as he struggled into a light state of consciousness was that he’d fallen asleep outside on a sheet of ice. The feeling grew stronger when he opened one eye and saw nothing but white. His brain was muzzy, thick, thoughts trailing and blurring into others. He was shivering. He smelled blood. 

Opening his eyes, he blinked against the blur. Not ice, he decided. Just a white floor glowing from the blue-white of a dim overhead light. 

Now, pain. Brow, nose, jaw. The back of his head, his hips. He’d taken more than one hard shot in the groin, the vague nausea burning in his belly from the hits. His back felt battered. There was an all-too-familiar sharp pain in his ribs. 

A woman was over him, then another. They leaned into his field of view in dark robes the color of ink.

_Landstuhl. I’m still in Landstuhl…_ American Army nurses talking softly to him. One of them was humming…

_But wasn’t that—_ he thought, shaking his head. 

“…Before?” he croaked, and it slurred into a cough. Blood bubbled from one nostril and he coughed hard again, choking. He became aware he was naked now, curled into a ball on his side on the floor. Blood streaked the linoleum faintly beneath him here and there. The confusion roiled in his mind, like trying to follow a tangled line to the surface.

The women were talking to him again. 

“We’re here to take care of you, John,” one of them was saying. She was stroking his face. 

“Do you want that, John?” the other asked, leaning in close, a hand on his arm, his head, the back of his neck. He squinted into her dark face. 

“…Want?” _Landstuhl? What was this place?_

“Do you want us to take care of you, John?” The woman enunciated each word carefully, gently. Her voice was just above a whisper.

His head ached as he looked into her eyes, her face. Kind. Kind face.

“Yes,” he replied, his voice hoarse. “Yes…”

A door opened. Footsteps came in, the sound of wheels on the linoleum. A stretcher was lowered down beside him, close to the floor. Shoes. Boots. Hands. They helped him onto his back, pain shooting in. 

“Don’t—“ he choked the word out as the sensation stabbed at his chest. 

“It’s all right,” someone was saying as arms lifted him, settled him onto the stretcher. Something soft was draped over him. A hand – large and soft, a man’s – had settled onto his forehead, smoothing his hair back. “My God, what has he done to you, John? What has he done…”

John looked up at the faces above him, the women (the other blonde, eyes the color of ice), two young Arab men, and a bearded man he thought he knew but couldn’t quite place.

_Drugged…_ The thought swam to the surface of his thoughts. _I’ve been drugged…_

He blinked, his brow creasing down as he tried to place the face.

A jolt of memory—

_The man above him, dark room, light over him. Light over him and an IV stand, something burning going in._

_“Tell me, Captain Watson, who am I?” Pain flooded up John’s arm like a wave. He shook his head._

_“We’ve been over this time and time again,” the man was saying patiently._

_“M—“ John began, breath hissing between clenched teeth, eyes squeezing shut. “M...Moriarty.”_

_Another surge in his arm. Another wash of pain. He grit his teeth._

_“No, Captain,” the man was saying, unseen. “Look at me again. Tell me who it is you see.”_

_He opened his eyes, looked up in the dim light at the familiar face. Pinstripe suit. Silk tie dotted with neat umbrellas. Clean-shaven, pale face and a smile that reminded him so much of someone else he knew. Sherlock…_

_“M…Mycroft?” he breathed, confusion rattling him. He shook his head._

_“Yes,” Mycroft said softly, the smile widening. “Good. Very good.” And then the pain was gone again...._

Overhead lights were streaming by above him now, the stretcher rolling down a corridor. The women were on either side of him, the bearded man beside his head.  
Things were going dark again, the sandy feeling of drugs finally taking over and sending him into sleep. 

From the darkness closing in, he heard the man speaking softly:

“I’m going to take care of you, John,” he said, a hand curving over his forehead again. “I won’t let him hurt you like that again.”

 

***

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER TEN.


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER 10**

 

Outside the window, the landscape was eclipsed by an endless, starry night. Inside, pipe smoke drifted around the thick panes as Sherlock exhaled a lazy, fragrant cloud that moved from the window to the lampshades then into the sleepy gold of the overhead light. His father’s pipe was a curved bowl in his hand, a warm and familiar shape. He rubbed the worn mouthpiece with his thumb, his other arm crossed around his waist. The velvet smoking jacket he wore helped chase the chill that had crept in with the waning of the fire.

“You know I’m not exactly chuffed that you’re smoking a pipe,” a familiar voice behind him said. 

Sherlock turned from the window and its stars and looked at John tucked in a high-backed leather armchair: hair slicked back, black smoking jacket with an etched pattern in the cloth, his legs in their charcoal wool trousers neatly crossed. Black leather shoes shined to a sheen and dark socks completed the look. He was reading a red hardcover book and had pinned Sherlock with a hard but fond look. 

“It helps me to think,” Sherlock said, his lip curling, and he put the pipe back between his teeth, walking toward the fireplace and lifting the poker to turn the logs. Sparks soared in a clumsy cloud.

“Here,” John said, sighing as he put the book down and rose. “Let me,” and Sherlock handed him the poker and stepped away, a wry smile now finding its way onto his face.

Things had been so much better since John had arrived the night before. Before that, his father’s study had begun to feel stuffy and too small and close, the way it often had when he was a boy. But now that John was here with him, the space felt warm and close in a way that felt familiar, like their flat in winter just before Christmas. 

Even the odd, long night – 23 days now and counting – felt fine to Sherlock, even natural somehow now that John had arrived. Sherlock did his best thinking at night, after all, and John had always stayed up with him as long as he could manage. 

And here there was no Surgery for him to go to. There were no cases. There was apparently no need for trips to the Tesco. Here they never ran out of tea or bread, fruit and cheese. Here they never argued over who would go fetch those things either. It simply appeared, and it was all either of them seemed to need. 

The night before, Sherlock had been sitting so still in his chair and for so long that it made his body ache, hands steepled in front of his face, index fingertips on his lips. The virus’ geometry danced in the air around him as his mind made connections, discarded them, and made them again.

He was thinking about John, _almost_ remembering something that kept trying to intrude into his calculations. He pushed it away. It came back.

“ _Damn it!_ ” he’d spat, standing and whirling toward the fire, his hands ruffling his own hair with a jerk. 

“Sherlock honestly, just take a break,” a voice said from behind him, and he spun toward the source of the sound.

John. Sitting there with a newspaper open in front of him, shaking his head.

“What--?” Sherlock mumbled, shaking his head. His brows squinted down.

John met his gaze, the gentle rebuke mixed with concern in them. “Honestly, I’ll bet you haven’t left this room for days. You should get out. Go to the park and make horrible remarks about people. Cheer you right up.” He snapped the newspaper and smiled.

Sherlock shook of his surprise and found himself grinning. _Yes, John was here. He’s likely been here all along. You just didn’t notice him…_

But another part of him knew John hadn’t been in that chair the whole time. Time had passed. Twenty-three days to be exact. He was there now because Sherlock needed him now. He needed--

“We can’t go to the park,” he said softly.

“And why not?” John replied, eyes still scanning the headlines.

“Because this house, this place, isn’t real.” Sherlock said it almost sadly, looking at John and meeting his eyes as John looked up and met his gaze. Sherlock smiled faintly again.

“Perfect,” John said lightly. He cocked his head in that expression that was both _what a loon_ and _I love you._ “And I suppose I’m not real either.”

Sherlock shook his head, the smile gone. He swallowed. “No.”

John nodded. “Excellent. Hope I can stop going to the loo soon then.” He stood, setting the paper down. “When you get back you can tell me all about how you’re not real either.” He closed the distance between them, leaned up and brushed his lips across Sherlock’s cheek. He smiled, then disappeared through a door to the right. 

Sherlock huffed a faint laugh, turned back toward the fire, breathing in the rich smell of the wood. 

_Yes. So much better with John here._ Even this John, who wasn’t aware he wasn’t here.

On the table by his own chair, the ornate gold phone he’d loved to play with as a child began to ring, shaking a bit on its delicate cradle. Sherlock crossed to it, lifted it up, placed the white earpiece to his ear, his mind shifting gears as it prepared for new information from Stapleton or Molly—

“Hello, Sherlock.” 

_Mycroft._ Sherlock rolled his eyes.

 

**

 

Mycroft Holmes stood close beside his brother’s bed, tucked carefully among the equipment in the narrow space the medical staff had left open for themselves. He’d leaned his umbrella against the nightstand there by the untouched pitcher of water, the neat stack of plastic cups. Outside, it rained, the sun setting somewhere behind the cloudbank that had socked London in. 

He folded his hands behind his back and began to speak.

“I’ve come to see how you are,” he went on, going for conversational and failing, his voice heavy as he berated himself for the words that left his mouth. 

One look at Sherlock and it was clear there’d been no change ( _no change one wanted at least,_ he thought). His brother’s body was little more than bones beneath the thin blanket, his frail arms laid palm-up at his sides, trailing monitors and tubes and wires. Sherlock’s face was now set in even starker relief, the gray pallor of the dying dusted on his skin. His cheekbones were sharp as elbows now, his open, nearly unblinking eyes sunken and wreathed with dark. His hair was wet and slicked back from a recent washing, face poorly shaven but done well enough to allow a decent seal on his breathing mask. His breath came and went in a soft hissing, the mask clouding slightly each time he exhaled.

Mycroft sunk one hand into his pockets, looking down and pinching the bridge of his nose with the other. 

_Pointless_ , some part of him insisted, but another part of him told him to go on.

“Dr. Stapleton has made some progress,” he said, clearing his throat. “She is going to come by and…share the details with you shortly, I’m told.” 

_Or, put more correctly, she’s going to come talk **at you** in some misguided belief that you can hear her, that you’re still there,_ the voice in his head sneered in his own mind’s version of Holmesian disdain. 

Mycroft silenced the voice again with a shake of his head, went on. “We’ve had a bit of luck, I suppose. They found something in the biopsy of your spleen after its removal. Some sort of chemical signature.”

He watched Sherlock’s face carefully for some response. Nothing. Sherlock’s otherworldly eyes stared upward, blank and empty. He blinked slowly on a long exhale.

The angry, condescending voice was getting louder, words like _foolish_ and _hopeless_ and _gone_ sliding in. Mycroft forced himself to continue.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand the biochemistry of it enough to explain in the level of detail I know you would require,” he said softly.

Sherlock exhaled. A slow blink over his glassy eyes again.

“She thinks—“ 

He stopped. That was it. It was all he could muster. His hand went to cover his mouth, stroking at a faint ghost of afternoon stubble there. Then he drew in a breath, let it out, and leaned down over Sherlock, his hands bracing him on either side of Sherlock’s head so that he could move into Sherlock’s line of sight, his face a foot or so over his brother’s head.

“Sherlock,” he said quietly, meeting his brother’s blank gaze. “I am attempting to follow the lead of the others and believe that you are still… _here._ ” He winced involuntarily on saying it. “But I must admit it’s becoming increasingly difficult as more and more time passes.” 

It was the truth. Stapleton and the neurologists working with her couldn’t tell him why his brother had gone silent like this. He’d been told that his brother’s EEG seemed within acceptable levels – a bit abnormal in some areas because of the encroaching cells, but not in any way that typically linked to anything like Sherlock’s unresponsive state. 

And if they couldn’t identify the cause, they could not counsel him on whether it was an unknown consequence of the virus or whether his brother would emerge again or not.

His thumb worried a strand of Sherlock’s hair, barely touching the curl’s end. Sherlock’s eyes slid closed again, opened slowly. He exhaled. 

“I want to reassure you that I am doing everything I can to bring John home,” he said, looking again into his brother’s face. “I’ve already put much into place, or near to it. And I believe Ms. Adler and Lestrade will have useful information from Tunis shortly. We are all—“

He stopped, his thumb touching the skin of Sherlock’s temple lightly as he moved a strand of wet hair there, smoothing it down. He swallowed, swallowed again.

“We are all doing everything we can to keep you here, to have you well again,” he said softly, and what rose in him then nearly caused him physical pain. He stood quickly, returning to his stiff stance at the side of the bed. He grabbed something down in himself and pulled back. _Hard_.

Stapleton’s tap on the door and entrance got him the rest of the way. By the time he turned to face her as she greeted him, the feeling was gone and the mask was back in place. 

“No change?” Stapleton said, going to the other side of the bed. She looked both haggard and like she was much accustomed to working when she was. 

“No,” Mycroft said flatly. “I’m afraid not.”

“Well, it could mean nothing,” she said briskly, digging into her pocket and bringing out a penlight and a folded piece of paper. She dropped the latter on the bed, and tilted Sherlock’s face toward her so she could shine the former into his eyes.

“His dilation is still normal,” she murmured, as if to herself. “His eyes are getting very dry though.” She clicked off the light, left Sherlock facing her. “I’ll order some drops and have the nurses work them into his med rotation.” 

Mycroft watched her tuck the pen back into her pocket, then she reached for the piece of paper, folding it flat and smoothing it on the bed next to Sherlock’s thigh. He could see a chemical diagram on it, bonds and double bonds connecting.

“Mr. Holmes, it’s Jacqui Stapleton again,” she said directly into Sherlock’s face. “I’m looking straight at you. Can you see me? Hear me?” She didn’t wait for an answer, instead reaching out to place a hand firmly on his forehead and giving him a tiny shake. “I’m going to explain what we’ve found today, yeah?”

Mycroft’s gaze shifted from Sherlock’s face to hers, her tone making him think that anyone who wasn’t dead would be compelled to give her his attention. _Definitely a mother,_ Mycroft thought.

“We removed your spleen this week because of the damage caused by the disease. Do you remember me telling you about this? Well, when we biopsied the organ, we found trace elements of a biochemical byproduct in the tissues. We’ve managed to determine it from some form of synthetic T-cell that’s been fairly recently introduced your system. The virus itself has rewritten the genetic code of your marrow, and it’s continuing to do that. But this synthetic T-cell has altered the process somewhat, significantly slowing it and changing some of the ways your marrow is producing the leukemia-like cells.”

Mycroft let this sink in for a beat. “Is it a phase of the disease you haven’t encountered?” he asked.

Stapleton shook her head, her eyes going to his from Sherlock’s as she spoke softly. “No, I think it was actually administered to him here. I think someone’s trying to help keep him alive.”

“But not curing him,” Mycroft finished, anger creeping in, as Stapleton nodded.

“That’s my guess,” she said grimly. 

_Bloody hell,_ he thought, anger flaring. He would replace every nurse working the floor, every—

He blew out a breath. “Well, at least we now know what John Watson is paying for,” he bit out. “What are the next steps?”

Stapleton sighed, leaning on the bed, the piece of paper crinkling beneath her hand. “We’re working ‘round the clock to see if we can backtrack, reconstruct that synthetic cell. If we can do that – and that’s a huge _if_ , by the way – we can have a look at its mechanisms, see how it’s manipulating the genes. It might be possible for us to alter it so as to amplify its effect on the virus, stop it damaging the marrow.”

Mycroft nodded. He was no doctor, but all science operated from logic, and that he knew intimately. “Would the marrow be able to then repair itself?” 

Stapleton gave a small smile. “This T-cell is something so cutting edge that we don’t even have something like it at Dartmoor, Mr. Holmes,” she said. “We’re _well_ into the realm of science fiction at the moment. When we have some science _fact_ , I’ll be able to make better guesses. But my initial thought is that he would require a stem cell transplant to repair the marrow. But honestly, that’s not my concern at the moment.” 

“Of course,” Mycroft said, giving her a terse smile.

She stood, leaned over Sherlock again. “Mr. Holmes,” she called into his face, raising her voice a bit. “I have a sneaking suspicion that you’re too bloody stubborn to have let that brain of yours go to this. I’m going to operate from that assumption, yeah? I’m guessing, in fact, that what you’ve done is gone into that Mind Palace of yours—“

 _Oh my, it’s a ‘palace’ now, is it?_ Mycroft couldn’t help the roll of his eyes. The last he’d heard it was merely a _chateau_...

Stapleton gave Mycroft a wry smile, continued without missing a beat. “—And if that’s the case, I’m guessing that you can see this, and that you’d want me to share it with you. So here it is.”

And with that, she held the paper up in front of his face.

Stapleton held it up for a full minute at least, both of them watching Sherlock’s pale eyes in his ghostly face. No change. No one at home. 

**

Or so it seemed.

“Clever woman,” Sherlock said in the study, his eyes darting back and forth at Nothing in front of him. He was still holding the phone as he did so. John looked at him, confused, but he stayed quiet in deference to the phone call.

Sherlock’s mouth curved into a smile and he hung up the phone, moving quickly to the desk by the far wall. He fumbled with a piece of his father’s stationary, a fountain pen. He began sketching out what he’d seen.

 

***

Morning in Tunis, just after dawn, and John Watson turned away from the light coming through the window in his sleep, the blanket slipping down his body as he burrowed his face further into the pillow.

He was having the dream again. 

_Let me finish it this time,_ he pleaded in his mind. _Let me see—_

But it was already receding. He was walking with someone down a street in London. He was walking and he was listening to the other person – a man he walked closely to, a man he felt _so pleased_ to be walking with – speak. He would turn, laughing at something the man had said, but the moment he would begin to make out the face.

Nothing. No way to stop it whisking away. No way to keep himself there long enough to see who this person was, the man whose laugh was a rich, warm rumble beside him. Sometimes the dream would shift to the desert, the air beating with the sound of a helicopter’s rotor. Sometimes he saw flame. Sometimes he would see The Other Man’s face.

That’s what burst through the doors of the dream this morning. The Other Man -- _Holmes,_ he reminded himself. _Fucking Mycroft Holmes_ \-- leaning in, a sneer on his long face, a strange light dancing in his eyes.

 _He needs a bit more,_ he said softly, inches from his face, blocking everything else out. _Give him a bit more…_

The shout that he gave as the pain rushed in sent him crashing out of sleep. He woke to find himself sitting up in the bed, the blanket a tangle around his legs. Sweat was in his eyes and he wiped at it, at his forehead, smoothing the sweat over the close crop of his crew cut. 

“Jesus…” he breathed, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing in his pants. Regulation, khaki green with a white band, the legs halfway down the thighs. They looked both strange and familiar on him all at once. He rubbed his hair again, looking around.

_But wasn’t I…?_

“Good morning, Captain,” came a voice from the door, and he turned to see a young man standing there, a solider in desert camouflage ( _Royal Marines_ , John noted), a tray of food in his hand and a hanger with something in a dry-cleaning bag over his shoulder. “Are you quite all right, sir? Forgive me if I’ve woken you.”

 _McCann,_ he thought instantly. _Of course, it’s McCann. His aide. Who else would it be?_

He puffed out a laugh, scrubbing at the back of his head. “No, no it’s fine, McCann, sorry.” He shook his head, reaching for his robe at the end of the bed, huffed another laugh. “Just…yeah. I’m fine, ta. Breakfast?”

McCann gave a kind smile. “Yes, sir. And your uniform just back from being pressed. You’ve that meeting with with the Top-Ups first thing.”

John nodded. “Of course, yes, yes.” He remembered it all now. He gestured to the table. “Just there will be fine, Corporal. Thank you.” 

McCann went to the table, setting the tray down and John tied the tie to his robe and went to the chair to sit. There was a neat file folder beside the plate of kippers and eggs, the word “Classified” stamped across it in red. 

“The most current briefing, I assume,” John said, reaching for the teapot and pouring himself a cup. 

“Yes, updated overnight,” McCann said.

“Very good, thank you.”

“Sir, if I may,” McCann began softly. “It’s quite normal for you to still be having…difficulties. Dreams and such. All of us who were there have them, and you were injured quite badly after all.” The young man’s face softened kindly as John met his gaze and held it for a long beat. He cleared his throat.

“Yes. Well.” John gave a tense smile as he picked up a fork. “I appreciate your concern, Corporal, but I’m quite well.” He glanced back toward the bed. “You can just lay the uniform on the bed. That will be all.” 

McCann nodded, smiling faintly. “Of course, sir. Mr. Moriarty will be ‘round in a bit to go over the briefing.” And he was gone.

John ate briskly, finished the cup of tea, then withdrew to the bathroom for a quick shower and shave. He dressed, putting on the crisp blue uniform trousers with their red stripe, the white T-shirt, the braces. As he shouldered into the matching blue jacket, he regarded himself in the mirror, smoothing down his hair.

 _Something not right, something…_ He checked the insignia buttons, the neat line of ribbons, the white braid around the shoulder. He smoothed down the blank surface of the jacket, over the brass buttons. He put on the wide white belt, clipping it closed and straightening it on his waist. He held the green beret with its gold insignia pin in his fist as he went to military attention and looked at himself carefully. 

_Something…_

“No, this is right,” he said aloud, into the uncertain look in his eyes in the reflection. They nodded to each other as if they were reassuring each other. 

He went to the closet, past the dresser and the photos of his unit in the collage over it (“5th Commandos – Royal Marines, Afghanistan 2012” was on a rough banner held between him and another man over a group of crouched, smiling men). Past his few belongings set neatly out on its surface (iPod and ear buds, a copy of a mystery novel, a pocket watch that had been his father’s). He swung open the door and – 

A suit. A…blue suit? 

_No don’t put it on don’t put it on_

He closed his eyes against the oddly vivid memory – the closet empty save for the blue suit – and when he opened his eyes he saw just what he should have seen: uniforms. Combat boots. Gear on the top shelf. 

He shook his head to clear it again, gave the room the same nervous laugh he’d given McCann, and got the black boots as he’d planned, untucking the neat ball of socks as he sat in the chair again and set his beret down, bending to put the socks and boots on. The action settled his mind, felt familiar at last.

A soft tap at the door. 

“Come,” he called, pulling the last lace tight. The door opened and John felt a warm sense of comfort wash over him. He smiled.

“James,” he said, standing and reaching out his hand. “So good to see you.”

James Moriarty came in, the kind smile John knew him by on his face. He took in John with a fond look as he took John’s hand in both of his. 

“You look well,” he said warmly. “ _So_ well, John. Just since I saw you last week.” 

John smiled in return, pleased with the praise. “I feel well, thank you, James.”

“No headaches? No nightmares?” Moriarty put a hand on his shoulder as he spoke, his brow creasing in something akin to fatherly concern. 

“It’s…fine, all fine,” John replied, but his smile faltered a bit but holding. He’d also hesitated just enough that Moriarty’s hand closed a bit tighter on his shoulder.

“John,” he said softly. “You know you can tell me things you can’t tell Command. Always. We’ve been friends for too long for it to be otherwise.”

John nodded. _Twenty years. You’ve known him for 20 years…_ “I’m sorry…it’s just a reflex these days.” He blew out of a breath, looking down. “I’m still…yeah, still having a problem every now and again.” 

Moriarty’s brow creased again. “How often?”

John kept his eyes down, staring at the middle of Moriarty’s dark suit, at the gold fox pin in the silk tie. 

“Once or twice a day I’ll have a ( _don’t call it a memory_ )…flash of something. Like some other place. Or this place but things are…different?” He blew out a frustrated breath. “I just…I’m ready to be _myself_ again. To feel like myself again.”

He looked up into James’ face, hoping he wouldn’t see the surprise, fear, he was afraid he’d see in his friend’s expression. But James’ eyes only softened more, his smile growing bittersweet.

“Listen to me,” he said quietly, something fierce creeping into his deep voice. “What they did to you was horrible, my friend. But you’re finding your way back, back here to us, to your comrades and your duty. You have come _so far_ in such a short time. You should be so pleased.”

John nodded at the conviction in Moriarty’s voice. “Yes. Yes, I have. And I _am_ back. I am. But when it happens, it’s so _real_ for a moment.”

Moriarty nodded. “And you know that this is completely normal. You know this will fade over time.” He sighed. “Though I think you should go see Dr. Dryden again. I will have him called and see if he can see you this afternoon.” 

John shook his head. “No, I’m fine,” he said quickly. _No doctors no stay away from me_. He shook his head. “It’s all fine.”

_It’s all fine_

Moriarty smiled, giving John’s shoulder another squeeze. “All right,” he said. “I trust you to know what’s best for you, my friend.” Then he picked up the file folder, opening it and handing it to John.

“And I honestly think your new mission will help you so much. I think the best thing for you will be to have your revenge.” 

John swallowed, nodded, his face hardening. “Yes,” he said. He looked down into the folder, knowing what he’d see.

A surveillance photo of Mycroft Holmes dated the day before, Holmes crossing a street in London, glancing in the direction of the camera and staring right back at him.

 

******

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 11


	11. Chapter 11

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

 

The Tunis souq was teeming with people outside the open windows of the coffee shop, a mix of locals and tourists moving along the narrow street. Greg Lestrade sat at one of the small square tables, looking down at his cards on the green rectangle in the center of the mosaic table, a cup of the shop’s nearly lethally strong coffee cooling by the hand. American music – something old, World War II-era – was drifting from a speaker in the din of conversation in the smoke-filled room.

Across the table, his opponent, Medhi Sassi – white suit and shirt that were stretched a bit over his ample belly, red tie with a somewhat gaudy gold pin – stared down at his cards, the thin mouthpiece of a hookah in his mouth. All he needed, Lestrade had thought on seeing him this morning, was a red cummerbund and he could be a villain straight out a 40’s B-movie reel. There was even a small stream of smoke slid from one nostril above his thick mustache as he smoked.

But this man was far from a buffoonish bad guy. The information Lestrade had been told Sassi held about the goings-on in Tunis – both legal and not – made him a potentially dangerous foe in and of itself. The two quiet men seated by the door, guns tucked somewhere in their dark suits, just reinforced this fact.

“You are getting better at Chkobba, my friend,” Sassi said, but one corner of his lip was curling and Lestrade knew the defeat was coming just from that. “But not good enough just yet.” And with that, Sassi swept the cards up, taking the trick. He stacked the cards onto his pile with measured care and smiled.

Lestrade smiled, opened his hands in front of him in the universal gesture of _take it_ , and Sassi reached over and took his pile of bills. “I bow to your superior skill, as always,” he said, reaching for his coffee.

“An easy thing to do when one has no choice,” Sassi said, signaling to the waiter, who came forward and leaned close as Sassi ordered another pot of coffee and a fresh deck. “You wish to play another?”

Lestrade smiled, leaned back with his coffee. “If you’ve the time,” he replied.

Now Sassi laughed, pushing the used deck to the side and leaning back in his chair. It creaked under his weight. “I have all the time in the world if you will continue to lose your money with such grace.” 

_Not my money, thank God,_ Lestrade thought, smiling amiably again. Mycroft’s coffers seemed bottomless and it was a good thing. It was taking quite a bit of it—and quite a bit of time—to earn Sassi’s trust, but he thought the investment of both had been worth it.

“I can,” Lestrade replied, then let the smile fade. “I was ready to go back to work anyway.” He forced a huff of a laugh.

The waiter returned with the pot of coffee, heavy cream, rough lumps of sugar. Sassi chuckled. “A man with your unique talents should not be wanting for work here.”

Lestrade was grateful for the ease with which his lies slid off of Sassi’s tongue. Ex-Army, Military Police, Counter-Terrorism. Mycroft’s false file on Lestrade had been a bit terrifying to behold in its detail and the speed with which it appeared. 

Lestrade had dropped bits and pieces of his “life” story as they’d played the past three weeks, since he and Irene Adler had arrived from London with the ink still wet on their identities and little idea where to begin. So he’d started by doing what he usually did in a new place when he wanted to know “the word on the street:” by asking anyone he thought might have an idea who was the man to ask.

Sassi’s name came up so many times that Lestrade stopped asking. From there, he’d sidled his way into this coffee shop where Sassi was known to be a betting man with a taste for cards.

Sassi was shuffling the new cards as the waiter poured. Lestrade leaned forward, a slight conspiratorial gesture that Sassi would catch, he knew.

“Wouldn’t know where to start looking,” he said, going for casual as he stirred the cream into his cup. 

Sassi shuffled again, and Lestrade could feel his appraising look. “Are you particular about whom you work for? Their line of work, let’s say?”

Lestrade pursed his lips. “If you’d asked me that five years ago? Probably a bit. Now?” He shook his head, leaned back and looked the other man straight in the eye. “No.”

Sassi began to deal, send three cards Lestrade’s way. “I know of three, maybe four men I would recommend.”

Lestrade kept his gaze level. “Highest pay.”

“Risk?” Sassi dealt himself three cards as well.

Lestrade shook his head, checking the cards by the corners. “Not bothered.”

Sassi leaned forward. “What about risk perhaps _from_ your employer? Should you fail to perform to his standards?” 

Lestrade smiled. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” He cocked an eyebrow. 

Sassi nodded. “Well.” He checked his cards. “I can’t do much in terms of putting you in direct contact with this one man. But I have noticed some activity on his part that might signal he’s in need of additional Help.” 

“’Activity’?”

Sassi picked up a card from the draw stack, exchanged it with one of his own, his eyes down on his hand as he spoke, as though he did not want anyone noticing the conversation being directed at Lestrade from him. His voice lowered as well.

“A little over two weeks ago, several of his usual…staff...whom we’re accustomed to seeing frequent some of the more liberal areas of the medina – private bars that cater to Westerners and…tastes outside the Decency Laws, let’s say. Then they began moving through town in a group, all in British uniform now, all with the insignia of the same unit – commandos in the Royal Marines.” 

Lestrade looked impressed. “Someone’s got bollocks, planning something that needs _that,_ ” he said, watching Sassi take his turn. “Though I’m not quite the age or shape to pass for a Marine.”

Sassi quirked a smile. “I meant that if his own men are occupied with other work, it might be a time when he is need replacements?”

Lestrade played, deliberately missing picking up a card so that Sassi could have it. “I’d be interested, yeah. Sounds like an important man. And I like to work for men like that. They do important things.”

Sassi's smile faltered a bit as he picked up the card. “Oh yes,” he said vaguely. “This man definitely does important things.” 

“How do I contact him?” Lestrade asked.

Sassi held up a finger. “You do not. But I will start the whispering about you along the ground. Such whispers tend to rise fairly quickly to him, so long as they come from the right places.”

Lestrade drew another card, giving up another hand to let Sassi win. “I’d be in your debt,” he said.

The other man laughed and tapped the deck. “Sooner than you think if you continue to play so poorly, he chided. “Drink your coffee and play.”

 

**

 

The Demilitarized Zone at the 38th Parallel was perhaps the most wrongly named place on Earth, a sprawling line of fencing and gravel and dark-colored buildings from which the northern part of Korea glared at the southern and the southern looked, wide-eyed, back.

In one building – plain as a black cracker box on the outside like all the others – Mycroft Holmes sat at one end of a long, highly varnished conference table. He was alone at the table but not alone in the room: guards stood in silent attention at the far end of the room by a set of black double-doors, and there were two others behind him at a matching set of doors. The room was strangely opulent given its exterior, all gold molding and ivory pant, a chandelier over the table, an expensive oriental rug beneath. Western, expensive. Totally out of place. 

Mycroft sat, watching the doors, leaned back in the chair a bit. His legs crossed. He glanced up at the clock. One minute, 20 seconds to to 11:00 a.m. The room was too warm, he assumed on purpose. A crystal decanter of ice water and two glasses sat in front of him, sweating.

At precisely 11:00 a.m., the double-doors across from him opened, admitting two men. The first was a thug, nothing more, a bodyguard for the second man. But the second man, Mycroft recognized (Woo-jin Kim, allegedly) though he had no concept of the man’s title at this point. Nor did he care what it was, really. A mouthpiece was a mouthpiece and set of ears a set of ears, and this man, Mycroft knew, was a member of the family. He was also older, which was even better, since the poorly kept secret here was that one was always actually dealing not with figurehead nephew but with the aunt. 

_Yes, Mr. Kim,_ Mycroft thought, appraising him. _You will do nicely…_

Kim wore a silver silk suit, royal blue tie. Black hair shot with gray and glasses with thick bifocal lenses, mouth caught in a perpetual frown that gave him a vaguely toadish face. He did not smile as he and his bodyguard sat, Kim leaning forward on his elbows and pushing his glasses back up his nose.

“Mr. Mycroft,” he said. “On behalf of his High Excellence, I offer warm welcome and ask that you state your business so that he may consider your request.” 

“I thank you for your warm welcome,” Mycroft replied easily. “And I believe His High Excellence is already aware of the reason for my visit. Now I hope you have brought me a favorable answer.” He smiled across the table, folding his hands on his knees.

But Kim did not blink. “His Excellence does not believe it is in his best interest to alter the current circumstances.”

Mycroft’s face did not change. “How surprising.” Flat. “So at odds with the usual _fine_ decision making we’ve all become so accustomed to as of late.” 

Kim did not smile. “Perhaps you have made a poor argument for how a change would be beneficial.” 

“I believe the _argument_ was quite generous under the circumstances.” Mycroft could feel his eyes narrowing slightly.

Kim heaved out a breath but otherwise didn’t move. “These issues with Mr. Moriarty. They are _your_ issues, Mr. Mycroft,” Kim replied. “We understand your brother is ill. We understand this is distressing. But this is not an adequate reason for His Excellence to alter a beneficial relationship and risk the consequences of Mr. Moriarty’s…disappointment.”

Mycroft stared. “First.” He paused, gathering himself and stamping down the anger that had begun to simmer in his chest. “These issues go far beyond personal concerns, so in that you have been poorly informed. I believe an objective assessment of the power Moriarty holds at this juncture will demonstrate that circumstances are in need of adjustment.” He paused, smiled faintly. “Though perhaps this is not something readily apparently to all.” An anemic smile. “But I can assure you that there will be no retaliation by Moriarty.” 

Now it was Kim’s turn to stare at the icy look Mycroft gave. “I see,” he said finally. He was quiet for a beat. Beside him, his bodyguard looked down the table, at his employer, back again, as the silence hung.

Finally Kim said: “Mr. Moriarty has done much for His Excellence. I do not see how you could do more.” 

Mycroft leaned forward slowly, sighing. He could feel his face flushing and tamped it down. Then he began to speak.

“I hope you’ll forgive me for what I am about to say but alacrity _is_ foremost in my mind at the moment. So let us be frank: under the tutelage of Mr. Moriarty, His High Excellence is widely considered an isolated and mentally unstable child, a man who was just reported to have fed his _own uncle_ to a pack of dogs like some sort of Caligula—“

Kim’s back snapped straight, his mouth opening. Mycroft leaned back.

“-- _Not_ that I would _ever_ think such a thing, nor would my government. Your nation has also grown to be viewed as a colorless and concrete gulag filled with starving and terrified people who would lead a revolution with a modicum of proper motivation and the slightest _hint_ of support. And while I’m aware that Mr. Moriarty has considerable resources, let me rather explicitly state that I represent a _number_ of interested parties – some of whom are not enthusiastic supporters of His High Excellence and who have expressed _considerable_ interest in collaborating in this matter.”

The man across the table from Mycroft blinked, blinked again, his eyes narrowing.

“And if Moriarty _does_ manage to retaliate? What then? Do you offer as much assistance as you offer threats?”

Mycroft nodded. “I have already secured all other relevant agreements _not_ to retaliate to any perceived military, political, or economic provocations until they can be thoroughly investigated and managed. We ask for the same assurances from you in addition to our pledge of replacing Mr. Moriarty’s economic support.”

“And military support?” 

But it sounded meek. Mycroft sighed, at the end of his patience. He was more tired than he could allow himself to acknowledge, jet-lagged and becoming saturated with worry. The image of Sherlock’s unseeing eyes above the fog of his oxygen mask, the angles of his bones beneath the stark white of the blanket, had sunk him into the first layers of anguish and grief. 

“Mr. Kim,” he said slowly, the rumble of anger in his voice now. “What is to come _is_ coming. You cannot stop it. So your choice is a simple one: come along or be left behind.”

Kim looked at him for a long time appraisingly. He licked his lips. Finally, he angled his head.

 

**

 

The fifth night after John arrived in the study, Sherlock made a door. 

He’d been sitting at the long wood table in front of one wall of bookcases, perched on the edge of the black stool his grandfather had made, sketching a chemical diagram and murmuring softly to himself as he worked it out. He had isolated something in the residue left in one of the livers of a victim of the virus, the one Molly had mentioned from one of her autopsy files, when John stood and went to the fireplace, the _Times_ crossword he’d been struggling with still folded in one hand as he lifted the poker and worried the fire, turning it over to coals. 

Sherlock looked at the straight line of his back in his dark smoking jacket, the broad and strong shape of his back, the neat line of his hair above the velvet collar. He could just make out the outline of his strong thighs in the well-fitted trousers.

Heat seeped from the coals, reaching him where he sat, and he felt it fill his belly as well. John glanced back at him and Sherlock realized he’d gone still and quiet for the first time in hours.

John’s eyes grew soft, warmer, as Sherlock met his gaze. “Something on your mind?” he said softly, voice finding a lower register.

Sherlock felt his lip curve just a bit as he felt the heat rising to his face.

“Oh yes.”

John hid the smile coming to him as he stirred the fire again, a new flame lighting up his face. 

“Do something about it then.” Barely audible, the sound and the challenge in it joining the warm, heavy feeling in Sherlock’s belly and heading south. 

Sherlock’s gaze shifted to the fire, his mind drifting back to another fire, a wide hearth in an elegant, high-ceilinged room, a wall of windows looking out on mountains and John at his side in the wide bed, John leaning up to capture his mouth in that first, tentative kiss.

And when he snapped back to the present -- _this_ present, such as it was -- the door was there, a bookcase in the far wall gone and replaced with the dark wood arch of it instead.

Sherlock stood, setting down the pencil he’d been using, smoothing the paper down. He went to where John was leaning the poker back in its stand and curved his long arms around him from behind, pulling that strong back against his chest. John let himself be pulled back, pressing his hips back against Sherlock’s hips.

“Come to bed,” Sherlock murmured close to his ear, lips ghosting, and when they opened the door, the bedroom from Switzerland was there.

When they stretched out on the bed, John’s body was the body he’d had before all the things that happened to them, just the puckered rise of the bullet wound on his shoulder and the rest a pale expanse of muscle and skin. The curve of scar on Sherlock’s side from the sniper shot was gone, John’s hand on his side there as he moved over Sherlock, knees on either side of his hips, forearms beneath Sherlock’s shoulders. 

John hummed faintly, thumbs smoothing over Sherlock’s cheeks. His face was very close. He smelled of tea. “What do you want?” he asked softly.

Sherlock smoothed his hands down John’s back, over his buttocks, the line of scar gone there as well. Then he drew his palms down, over John’s hips and between his legs to the warm weight of him, the soft skin of his sac, fingers curling around his cock. His own was hard against his belly and to one side, just tucked between their bodies. John made a soft sound in his throat as Sherlock brushed the impossibly soft skin with his fingertips. Something in him ached.

“I wish—“ Sherlock breathed it against John’s mouth, kissed him, shook his head.

“You wish what?” John brushed his lips across Sherlock’s cheek, his hips giving a tiny thrust.

“I’ve wanted so many times to go back to the first time.” He bit his lip, unable to meet John’s eyes. Snow fell outside the window as he looked out. “The first time you were inside me. That…only time.” He blinked slowly as he met John’s gaze again. “I would have had that end differently.”

John smiled gently. “Then end it differently. I imagine you can do that here, can’t you?”

Sherlock considered this. “Yes,” he whispered, nodding. He leaned up to capture John’s mouth again. He closed his eyes and time seemed to slow, like clock hands dragging.

And even behind his closed lids, he could see the light change, going golden white. He smelled the spice, the salt, felt the North African heat. Tunis’ blue waves washed the shoreline below the open window.

Then Sherlock’s hips settled into the heavy ache of the body between them, his thighs gripping John’s waist. He bit his lip hard against slight burn inside him, the jolt of the almost unbearable pleasure on each forward curve of John’s hips. He opened his eyes to the crease of concentration on John’s flushed face, the look of wonder in his cobalt eyes.

“Yes…god, yes…” The same low moan rising from John’s chest as in the memory, the same sudden wash of feeling that came with Sherlock’s orgasm cresting as he heard it.

“John—“ He choked the word out, the thick warmth pulsing between them up to Sherlock’s chest. The groan caught in his throat as well.

“Oh god, that’s gorgeous, Sherlock, yes…” John had leaned up enough to smooth his fingers through the wetness, a smile coming to his face as he saw Sherlock trembling with the pleasure.

Sherlock remembered that this is when it had become too much, the crash of sensations overwhelming him. Here was when he shut his eyes, shutting John out as it all became too much and he’d pleaded in his mind for _less._

 _Not this time._

He opened his eyes, his breath coming fast. John’s face was nearly pained, his back tight as he returned his arm to the mattress, his hips twitching. A desperate moan. 

“Sherlock—“

Here in this place, he could will the feeling away. Here he could reach up as he had before and hold John’s face close to his, their foreheads touching, his eyes open and his gaze burning into John’s. A hand on the back of John’s head, another on his hip, Sherlock nodded, pressed a kiss quickly to his lips.

“Come,” he murmured, thrusting his hips up to urge John forward. “Come inside me, John…please.” He pumped again. 

He was smiling as he watched desire flare in John’s eyes, as John’s hips surged into quick, hard thrusts. The groan burst from him as his body stilled suddenly and he began to shake.

“Oh god…” Almost a cry. “Sherlock…Sherlock…”

This time he only held John through it, the urge to pull away banished in the warm air, and holding John, wrecked as he was, against him as John trembled in the aftermath was, Sherlock realized, the most intimate thing he had ever felt. 

This time as John came back to himself, his eyes opening to meet Sherlock’s gaze, there was only tenderness in his gaze, no concern, no fear. John shook his head, leaning down to press a long kiss to his lips.

“So good,” John breathed. “God you’re amazing…so amazing…” He buried his face in Sherlock’s neck. “So—“ He swallowed, still panting, shaking his head. Sherlock could feel the emotion overwhelming him, so he held John tight, arms and legs curling around his wet back, stroking the soft, faint hair on the backs of John’s thighs with the arches of his feet.

“No,” he whispered against John’s temple. “That’s you…”

John slid out of him gently, cupping the side of Sherlock’s face as Sherlock gave an involuntary wince. 

John cringed, bit his lip. “Ah love, I’m sorry—“ 

“No don’t,” Sherlock whispered, shushing him gently as he shook his head. He smiled and kissed John, taking his time. They curved together on their sides, foreheads still touching, taking deep breaths. 

Time stretched. A cargo ship’s horn sounded far off in the harbor. Wind ruffled the white curtains and the first cool of evening began to creep in on the breeze.

_Tunis. Something about Tunis…_

Sherlock pulled John tighter against him. He willed what was pushing at the edges of his mind away.

“You have to let it in,” John murmured against his cheek.

“No.” He shook his head.

“You do.”

“I want to stay here with you. Just like this. I never want to leave again.”

John pulled back and met his gaze. “You can do that if you want, I suppose,” he said gently, though his brow creased down. “But if you do, the _me_ that exists outside that door, this place, will die. The _you_ that lives outside this place will die, as well. Is that what you want?”

Sherlock swallowed hard. He traced John’s brow with his thumb. He shook his head. 

“No.” 

It was just a breath of sound but it had the effect of a sudden gust of wind. Sherlock closed his eyes as he felt the room swirling around him, John’s warm body vanishing from against his, Sherlock’s fist clenching against air now as he felt everything around him simply _change…_

When he opened his eyes again, he was in a blank white room. He wore his daily clothes – black trousers, white shirt, black shoes. Artificial light. Linoleum floor. And in front of him, on the floor – John. The _real_ John. The last image Sherlock had of him, naked and in the fetal position on the white floor, bruises just starting to come in from the angry red splashes on his skin. Blood was smeared here and there on the floor.

All was still. Something caught hard as a fishhook in Sherlock’s chest, the memory of his horror as he’d seen John on the television in his hospital room, Lestrade and Irene beside him, both sucking in shocked breaths. 

“Jesus—“ Lestrade had said, anguished, and Sherlock’s head turned quickly toward the sound. 

Lestrade and Irene were here with him now, each on the side they’d been on by the bed. They stood with him in grim white space, Lestrade in his dark trench, Irene in a white shirt and crisp linen black trousers, a mirror image of Sherlock himself. She took his hand.

“It’s all right,” she said, squeezing hard, just as she had done at the bedside as Sherlock’s breathing had sped up and he’d tried to rise from the bed. Lestrade had stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder, and his hand was on Sherlock’s shoulder now as well.

Then, the sound of a door opening. The two women came in, crouched down beside John, leaning in over him in their long, dark robes. 

“Sherlock—“ Irene began beside him, still gripping his hand hard. 

“Concentrate!” Sherlock snapped, jerking his hand away from her. “Help me _see,_ for God’s sake.” 

Irene lapsed into silence beside him, all three of them watching the scene unfold before them.

John turned his face toward the women and squinted against the light, the swelling in his face. “…Before?” Sherlock heard him he rasp, then John shook his head. 

“Confused,” Irene said. “He’s been drugged, I should think.”

“Or just beaten senseless,” Lestrade added.

Sherlock held out a hand, urging silence. “Listen to them now.”

One of the women said: “We’re here to help you, John.” She stroked his face. The other asked John if he “wanted that.”

John looked up at them, from one face to the other, the woman’s hand on his face. 

Sherlock’s eyes focused. “ _Hold_ ,” he said, his voice like a whip, his hand still out. The scene froze. 

“Her hand,” he said sharply. “Look at her hand.”

Lestrade was the one who moved forward. “Some kind of symbol…” He leaned in, taking a closer look. “Looks like…two fish. Sort of curled around each other.”

Sherlock took a step closer as well, his eyes taking it in. Yes. Two fish twined in a detailed black and red tattoo in the juncture of their thumb and forefinger. Back of the hand.

 _Something on her hand…_ He had gasped it to Irene as she held him down, her head turning quickly back toward the television to look. 

Here, Sherlock cocked his hand back toward Irene where she still stood behind him. 

“You saw it,” he said, a small smile on his face, a note of hope in his voice. “You said so.”

“Yes,” Irene nodded. “Just before the television cut back to the show you’d had on,” she replied. “I got a good look at it.”

She had said more in the confusion that followed, the rush of panic and rage and anguish that had knocked him down into himself like a wave.

 _Calm down--_

_Help him I can’t help him—_

_We know we know love we’ll help him—_

_Find--_

_We will mate now lie still--_

_God--_

_Mr. Holmes I need you to calm down_ Nurses now. 

He remembered the first hard jolt of the seizure, everything going white behind his eyes. His teeth had caught the tip of his tongue and his mouth had filled with blood.

“No,” Irene said firmly, taking him by the arm and turning him toward her hard. “Go back to the study, Sherlock. Go _now._ You’ve got to stay out of your memories. You’ll get lost in these rooms and never come out.”

Sherlock looked at her, stricken. “Moriarty is torturing him,” he said, his voice rising. “I can’t leave him here.“

“We’re finding him,” Lestrade replied. “The minute you started seizing and they would have asked us to leave. We would have waited for Mycroft and told him what we saw. Irene saw the tattoo on the woman’s hand, so we knew the place and we had a lead. We’d go with that to go on.” 

Sherlock nodded, taking it in. “Yes,” he said softly. “You would, wouldn’t you?” 

Lestrade quirked a smile, then jerked his chin toward the door. “Now you’ve seen what you need to see here,” he said gruffly. “Remembered what you needed to. Go before you wall yourself up. Irene’s right. You’ll lose your bloody mind in here.”

Irene was pulling Sherlock back toward the door. She pushed it open, the warm study beyond, fire flickering on bookshelves and the sound of a newspaper snapping to a new page from the chair by the fireside. 

He stopped, looking back at her in the white room, John shifting on the floor beneath the curve of the women’s inky-robed bodies, Lestrade to the side.

“Trust us, love,” she said, nodding to him. “We won’t leave him here.”

He looked from one to the other. Finally he nodded, swallowing. He stepped through the dark arch and closed the door.

 

****

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER TWELVE.


	12. Chapter 12

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

 

Irene Adler was, unsurprisingly, a remarkable dancer. Not in the way most people thought of someone being a good dancer, with an extensive background in various styles and steps. If someone called for someone to do a Foxtrot, she’d be as lost as anyone else. 

But this kind of dancing, the slow move of a body against a body, the man in her arms experiencing the illusion of leading, of being in control of her as they swayed to the thick beat of the music – this was something for which she truly had a gift.

The man who held her – Australian businessman, married (the pale skin of his missing ring stark on his hand), good taste, no children – told her his name was Sidney, though she suspected that was where he lived. Her cheek was against his as their bodies moved through the hazy, warm shimmers of colored light, and she could feel his jaw working now and then. This told her two things: he was nervous and thus didn’t do this often; and he was ready for the foreplay and his sad attempt at seduction to end.

She leaned back and looked at him, waiting for his eyes to rise from down her body to her face. He wasn’t a bad looking fellow and he was thrilled by her, and she had to admit that the look he was giving her just then would _never_ get old, even if it made her detest him that much more.

“Would you like to move this dance to somewhere more private?” she asked. She knew how to use the velvet of her voice, how to quirk her lip in just the right blend of softness and mischief. 

Sidney swallowed. “I don’t think I should leave the club with you,” he said in a voice that was nearly comically _sotto voce_. “The people I work with…well…”

She smiled enough to show her teeth. “Oh darling, there’s no need for us to leave. There are rooms here in the club for those who wish to be…discreet.” She stepped back and took both his hands, squeezing them a bit in promise but also holding him at arm’s length.

He smiled, a rather needy and boyish look coming over him, something shy and likely very sweet, and she couldn’t wait to slap his face.

It wasn’t anything personal really. After all, he was probably the eighth client she’d had since she’d begun her thrice-weekly duties at La Cannelle, one of the better of the five clubs in medina that catered to specific kinds of Western tastes. 

Two that she’d visited she could tell immediately were too posh for the type of men who would be working for Moriarty. The first she’d entered (after wiling her way past the befuddled guard at the door marked with _Entrée Privee_ ), she could tell catered solely to The Billionaire Set, booths like small rooms and cleverly partitioned off for the odd blend of private and public those men would desire. 

Most importantly, though, was that the two women she did see curled on couches around the place did _not_ have the twin-fish tattoos on their hands, and though she wanted the information on Moriarty that the men in this room might have, it was the women who would give her a door to wherever John was being held.

The men were the wrong sort as well. The ones she needed to get close to – the ones Lestrade’s contact Sassi had said had begun moving about in British Marine uniforms – were likely little more than thugs, trained and polished and financially well healed to be sure, but still men who grew up willing to cross the lines of several _-alities_ in order to escape their circumstance. She knew the type: men who, when they visited her, wanted her rough but wanted to play a bit rough as well.

La Cannelle had been the second club she’d visited, and she was glad to not need to venture beyond it and show her face (and faux tale) too far around the medina. Before she met the proprietor (an older beautiful woman with striking long gray hair named Madame Bolan), she could tell it was an ideal place. Early evening when she’d entered, and men of all sorts were moving around the place. That meant Moriarty’s “Marines” would feel comfortable and inconspicuous here. 

It also meant that women to cater to all these sorts were needed. And though Tunis had pockets where the Decency Laws were rather lax, Irene did not believe that there would be an overabundance of women with her particular skill set.

She was still taking in the movement of the place when she saw it, there on the hand of a woman (thin but healthy, lovely but not too young, and sultry in just the right way) who had her arms crossed behind her client’s neck as they swayed at the dance floor’s edge.

The twin-fish tattoo etched into her hand.

As she suspected, once she told Madame Bolan the areas in which she had particular _expertise,_ the proprietor had invited her to join her in her posh office to “speak with more privacy and in more detail.”

The tattoo hadn’t come up in the course of their conversation about _discretion_ and the proper way to _accompany the guests._ Irene had had to bring it up herself. 

“And the tattoos? What are they?” She’d leaned forward a bit as she said it, subtly encroaching on the Madame’s psychological personal space.

Bolan did not look up from where she was preparing the contract, but Irene noticed a bit more color high on her cheeks. “That is not for you just yet.”

“Why?” Irene replied. She let it hang just with that so that Bolan would be forced to look up and meet her gaze.

“They are worn by women who have committed to La Cannelle in a more…long-term way. And women who are marked this way are reserved for our clientele who are the _most_ particular about issues of privacy, security, that sort of thing. I would have to perform a background check. Very intrusive. And the penalties for breaking the contract are bit more….rigid, shall we say.” Bolan gave her a false little smile.

“I’m happy for you to do it,” Irene said, giving her the same little smile back. “I’m interested in working with your best clientele, the most discriminating. The men with the most expensive tastes. And Tunis suits me. It’s my intention to remain here.”

“I see,” Bolan said. Irene couldn’t tell if she was wary or impressed, but she let the pause Bolan let stretch go on and simply held the older woman’s gaze. 

“The background check is quite…thorough, Ms. Coletti,” Bolan said finally, her tone almost apologetic. “Are you certain there’s nothing it might turn up in the end?” 

“Nothing,” Irene replied. “I’m very good at what I do, Madame Bolan. No one’s given a complaint. And as for myself, well…I’m not quite as naughty as I seem, I think.”

Bolan bubbled out a startled laugh. “Well, I should hope not,” she said. Then she went into a locked drawer with a key she wore tucked against her wrist. She drew out a different contract, slid it across the desk and folded her hands. 

“I’ll leave you for a bit to give you time to review this with care,” she said. 

Three days for the background check, Irene remaining impressed with the depth of the life this Elise Coletti had lived. Then hours with Bolan and a woman named Odin (clearly Bolan’s “eyes and ears” in the club) being _instructed_ on how to handle their guests. Then 40 minutes with Amir, the tattooist who marked the black fish and the red fish into her hand. 

_Small price to pay_ , she thought as he’d inked the symbol into her skin, to be rid of Moriarty once and for all. She’d already been marked in that fight much worse than this.

“Does it hurt?” Sidney asked, rubbing his thumb over the skin between her thumb and forefinger. The tattoo was still slightly raised on the thick black of its outline. 

“Oh Sidney,” Irene said, laughing lightly and leaning in close to his ruddy little face. “You know there’s a very little difference between pleasure and pain.”

He swallowed again. He nodded, the word “yes” rasping from his throat.

It was late, well after midnight. She’d managed enough trust among the women to have found that yes, the men she sought _did_ , in fact, frequent the place, but sporadically, and usually earlier than this. And though she’d rather die than disrobe in front of this mealy little man (well, at least down to her carefully designed leather ensemble that hid every one of Petrovic’s scars), whipping him would be good for her frustration at the patience it was taking for her to let things unfold.

So she gave Sidney a chaste kiss on his sweaty forehead, watching him lick his lips, then led him off the dance floor, through the dark little cubbies of the leather booths, through the haze of hookahs and cigars and hashish, to the archway that led to the private rooms beyond.

 

**

The light had faded through the hospital’s tall windows as Molly Hooper exited the elevator, tucking the passkey card Sherlock’s brother had given her back in the loose pocket of her oversized sweater. The sky had gone a deep blue, the neon of the signs far down on the street sending up a warm light.

She usually came in the mornings with the most recent virus victims’ autopsy files to read to Sherlock, but there had been a homicide that morning and she’d had to go to Bart’s early to do it. Still, the most recent casualty was one of the first people diagnosed with the virus, the one who had lived the longest with it, and she was anxious to read Sherlock the report.

The man’s file was thick and cumbersome in her purse, and she looking down, fumbling it off her shoulder as she entered Sherlock’s quiet room. That’s why the sharp intake of breath that came from near Sherlock’s bed startled her and she nearly dropped the file at the suddenness of the sound. 

But it was only one of Dr. Stapleton’s team from the lab. 

“Miss Hooper,” the woman said, her voice clearly startled and too high. She stepped back from Sherlock’s still form, pulling the blanket back up to his mid-chest as she did so, a hypodermic needle in her hand.

Molly forced a smile, since nervous people tended to make her nervous, and said: “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you there.”

“No, it’s fine,” Gretchen said with a soft laugh. “I just didn’t expect you tonight and-- Well, it’s a bit like a tomb in here.” 

Molly forced the smile to stay on her face, but it fell as she gave a puff of nervous laugh. “Well…Not quite,” she replied, but her voice faltered a bit.

Gretchen’s smile dimmed as well. “Yes, well…you would know, wouldn’t you?” she said, and Molly noticed something uneasy coming over her face for a blink. Then it was gone. 

“No change, I’m afraid,” Gretchen said, pushing on, nodding toward Sherlock, and Molly turned her attention to him, still and frail beneath the blanket. He’d been recently bathed and his hair was wet, a towel draped beneath his head on the pillow and dark from the wet. His eyes blinked slowly above the oxygen mask, but his gaze was blank.

Molly went to the other side of the bed, looking down into his face. “He’s all right,” she said softly, and rubbed the backs of her fingers against his arm. Just once. Just a touch to let him know she was there.

“You’re all very sure of that,” Gretchen replied, and Molly looked at her. “I mean…I’m sorry, but there’s no reason to believe—“

“There’s no reason not to,” Molly cut in, then winced a bit at the rudeness of it, the tone in her voice. “Sorry…it’s just that you don’t know him the way I do…the way most of us do. The way he can make his mind work.”

Gretchen gave a little chuff of a laugh. “You all talk as though as he’s super-human,” she said. “Even Dr. Stapleton speaks about him that way.”

And it was that moment that Molly’s eyes narrowed with a rare tinge of dislike. “No, he’s quite human,” was what she said aloud. “Anyone looking at him can see that.”

Gretchen smiled tersely. “I’ll leave you to him then,” she said, pocketing the syringe and fussing one more time with his blanket. Molly glanced at the movement of her hand into her pocket and Gretchen noticed it.

“A vitamin supplement we’re trying to slow the wasting,” she said, and Molly nodded as Gretchen came around the bed. “You’ll let us know if there’s any change?”

Molly nodded. “Of course,” she said, and watched over her shoulder as Gretchen left the room, closing the door behind her.

She took a step closer to the bed, brushed the backs of her fingers against his forehead again, leaning into his field of vision. His pale eyes blinked slowly, blinked again.

“I don’t like that woman,” she said softly to him. “I don’t know why, but I don’t.” She gave him a sad little smile. “You could spend 30 seconds with her and tell me why, couldn’t you?” 

*

“I did it in 10, actually,” Sherlock snapped into the ornate telephone, then began a litany at lightning speed. “ _Honestly_ it’s about _time_ someone walked in on her, though admittedly she’s been quite careful with the whole thing, keeping no schedule, making certain to work around the visiting schedules everyone’s set. My _God_ why do you all have to run your lives like bloody clockwork? Don’t people know a predictable schedule is the _worst_ thing they can do for—“

“Bloody hell, Sherlock,” John cut in behind him. “She’s sussed it out now! No need to berate her now for all that she hasn’t done now that she’s _done_ it.”

Sherlock looked back John, at the peeved look on his face as he shook his head, returning his gaze to the book he was reading, one finger rubbing his brow. John started to say something else at the sour look Sherlock was giving him, but Molly was talking again.

“Shh!” Sherlock hissed. “She’s reading…a new file. One of the first patients…” He trailed off, listening.

“…and this is the strange part here,” Molly was saying in the earpiece. “He’s had the virus as long as you have, only slightly less time than Iarla Brennan did, but the signature of the virus is so different from yours—“

“That’s because she’s _injecting me with something_!” Sherlock roared. 

“Sherlock!” John yelled back. 

“…if I were to, um, guess, I would think—“

A voice off in the near distance interrupted her, greeting her by name.

 _Jacqui Stapleton._ Sherlock drew in a breath.

“Tell her,” he said into the mouthpiece, though he knew it was useless. “Molly _tell her._ ”

*

“You’re here late,” Stapleton said as she entered the room, giving Molly a tired smile. Molly leaned away from Sherlock, feeling color rising on her cheeks.

“I…I had a file to read to him,” she said, and hated how she sounded like she was explaining herself. It made her feel like a teenager with a crush. She straightened a bit as she finished with: “I didn’t want to wait until morning.”

“I’m glad,” Stapleton said, going to the other side of the bed, seeming not to notice her discomfort. “The more contact he has, the better this will be for him. And the more information we can give him, the greater the chance he can be of help in this.”

Molly nodded. “Thank you for…keeping your faith in him that way,” she said softly. “I know some of your staff aren’t, well, as sure his mind’s still there and—“

“What makes you think that?” Stapleton asked, glancing up from where she’d been checking the IV line in the side of neck where the skin was reddening around the tape.

“Gretchen was just in here to give him his vitamin injection and she said—“

“I’m sorry, to give him his _what?_ ”

*

“YES! YES!” Sherlock shouted in triumph. “Blood sample, sample from the injection site, do it _now_!”

John barked a laugh from the chair, looking fondly at Sherlock. “And just like that, it’s Christmas,” he said.

 

**

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER THIRTEEN


	13. Chapter 13

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

 

Late afternoon in Tunis, the shadows growing long and the heat settling into a lower simmer on the breeze that came through the window. Irene was laying out a black dress, an artfully cut fine-fabric slip of a thing, smoothing it out on the ornate coverlet on her bed. She could hear the Call to Prayer faintly over the loudspeaker on the mosque as the mournful echo of it around the city, a strangely beautiful and foreboding sound.

“I’m just saying I don’t like it is all.”

Behind her, Lestrade was in the doorway, and without even looking at him she knew he was staring at her back, his arms crossed tight over his chest. She rolled her eyes.

“Yes, that’s been made quite clear,” she replied, monotone, going back to the closet for her black heels. She didn’t look at him as she went.

 _Let’s not do this,_ she thought as she went. _Not just now._

She’d known for certain there was trouble when he followed her in from the sitting room of the simple but elegant flat, coming after her even though she’d sharply cut off the tedious conversation they’d been having, the one that had erupted soon after they began their mutual update on their progress. 

He’d been telling her about his “interview” at Moriarty’s compound (“it was a bloody interrogation,” he’d admitted) when she’d leaned down to give him his tea and he’d seen it: the welt of a bite on the inside curve of her right breast.

 _Of course he’d seen it,_ she thought wearily. He looked every chance he could get.

“What’s that from?” he’d asked, the hand holding the teacup and saucer halting in midair. 

She glanced down at it, waved it off. “Just a love bite,” she said, reseating herself to pour her own cup. 

She pointedly ignored the way Lestrade’s eyes narrowed, his head tilting slightly in that sweet and vaguely dog-like way she’d grown accustomed to – and vaguely fond of – in the past weeks.

“Are you…?” he began, then stopped himself. She saw him swallow the rest of the sentence, but a tinge of red climbed to his cheeks.

“Doing my job?” she asked in her most unreadable tone. “Yes. Yes, I am.” 

He nodded slowly. “So you’re…” He trailed off again, and now she wanted to laugh.

“Yes, I’m _fucking men_ for money, Lestrade,” she said, now pinning him with a gaze. “Fucking _is_ one of the many services I offer. Don’t act like that’s a shock. I thought you had a fairly clear idea of who I am.”

That’s when she saw it, that one particular look she could not tolerate. Something pained and upset and full of feeling of some sort she refused to name. 

“That’s what you do,” he said softly. “It’s not who you are.”

She’d wanted to flare with anger, but the way he said and the look on his face—and damn him to Hell, he’d managed to find a way in _again._ That’s when she’d blown out a breath, set down the teapot, and left the room. 

Now, his words still hanging in the air with the keening outside the window, she stood, glanced back at him where he stood in her bedroom doorway. His arms were indeed crossed over his chest, shoulder leaning against the doorframe. His jean-clad legs were crossed at the ankles as well, sandals on his tanned feet.

“Look, I have neither the time nor the energy for your particular brand of _gallant_ right now, Lestrade,” she said as coldly as she could muster. She crossed to the dressing table, sat, and picked up a brush, working it through her hair. “It’s paternal and patronizing, not to mention unintentionally but undeniably moralizing.”

“I’m not judging you, if that’s what you mean,” he said quietly. He wasn’t taking the bait. There was no defensiveness in his voice.

“Aren’t you?” she asked. She could see him in the corner of her reflection in the mirror, watching her. “Isn’t that why you object?”

She saw him shake his head. “No,” he replied. “I object because I don’t want to see…someone use you like that.”

She raised an eyebrow at his reflection. “Oh _Greg_ ,” she dripped in her sweetest voice. “What’s the matter? Can’t stand to think of me in the arms of another man?” The mocking was unmistakable and desperate.

“I can’t stand to think of you _hurt_ , you stubborn—“

“I’m _gay_ ,” she cut across, her voice flinty.

“Yeah, kudos, I’m not," he snapped back.

They looked at each other, her hand stilling mid-stroke. She put the brush down. Neither blinked. 

“Let it go,” she said into the beat of quiet.

He looked down as he spoke. “I don’t see what’s wrong with having someone…” He gave the slightest shrug. “…worry about you.”

“That’s not what I’m seeing here,” she replied, her gaze hard on his. “It’s a distraction. Let it go.”

When she picked up the brush again she broke his gaze, ending the conversation. He was still looking down, worrying his lower lip. 

“Do you know what you’ll be doing yet?” she said, redirecting him as she began to arrange her hair up away from her neck.

“Yeah,” he said after a beat, forcing his voice back to normal, all business as he cleared his throat. “Just vehicle security at first. I start tonight, eight o’clock. New Security meets them at the limo service and goes from there.” 

“Sounds like a wise precaution,” she said, weaving her hair into a tight bun. “You never know what sort Moriarty might be letting in.” She gave him a wink and a half-smile and he huffed a laugh. He’d been watching her hands and his face was a touch red again.

“I’m hoping they’ll at least take me to the grounds of the house to pick someone up,” he went on. “I’m ready to get a look at the place, start sussing out what we’re going to be dealing with if we need to get John from the house.”

Now he leaned away from the doorframe, his hands going into his pockets. “It might be a bit of time before we can meet like this again.”

“Why?” she asked, finishing her hair. 

He looked down again. “Because if something goes off with my cover and I’m not aware of it, I don’t want to draw any attention to you.”

She was tempted to make another biting comment about his sentiments. But then she looked at him in the mirror again, surprised to see his soft eyes looking back. What she meant to say died in her throat.

“Gay,” she said again, a bit of scolding in her voice but gentleness in her gaze.

“I know,” he said, smiling almost shyly as he gave that same tiny shrug, looked down, then up into her face again. “Take care of yourself, all right? I’ll have Mycroft’s phone if you need me.”

The satellite phones. Hers – the same she’d taken to Minsk – was in the beaded clutch she’d take tonight. The one she took every night. Lestrade had been given Sherlock’s, she knew, because the number was the same.

She turned in her seat as she watched him go. “Lestrade?” she called after him, and he stopped and turned.

“Be careful,” she said softly. It felt like a huge concession, and something anxious flared in her chest.

He gave her a warm smile, angled his head. “You too,” he said, and then he was gone. She heard the door to the hallway open and close again.

She stared at the empty doorway for a long beat. The Call to Prayer had stopped, the shadows longer now. She turned, looked at herself.

 _Let it go,_ she told herself, as firmly as she’d told him. Then she reached for her brushes and went to work on her face.

 

**

John Watson was running, combat boots beating out a fast rhythm on the sand, the orange of the setting sun searing the ocean to the color of fire. The cooler air was a relief to his lungs, burning from the five-mile run, the last half-mile of which had been spent trying to catch his friend Conrad in some brutal version of _tag_.

“Come on, old man, come on!” Conrad yelled from ahead of him, and the slag on his age was enough to give him a jolt of adrenaline, boots tapping faster now, closing the distance, Conrad now close enough that John could grab him by the back of shirt if he had a mind to do it. 

“That’s a boy, John!” came a call from up ahead where the rest of the team waited at their impromptu finishing line between two Humvees.

“Conrad, you twat, I’ve got 50 quid on this!” Lanham was waving his arms like a wild man, the rest of the men laughing at Conrad and at him.

John grinned, digging down, digging in, and passed his friend, Conrad swearing at him in one long stream of words on his panting breath, throwing his upper body forward as stretched for the invisible tape. Conrad was a full two steps behind as John crossed first.

He pulled up the cheering and jeers of the other men. Hands on his knees, body bent, John broke into a laugh as four men on the team grabbed Conrad and sent him flat on his back on the beach, sand flying, the five of them rolling around like boys. 

“Never doubt the man!” Fritz yelled, coming up to slap him on the back, and John raised his arms in mock triumph, jogging a bit toward the water’s edge meaning to just splash water his face. The cool water felt so good that he just kept going and dove into the breakers instead.

For a long moment he hung underwater, taking in the cool of the water, the muffled sounds of the men. He bobbed up for air, shaking his head, and saw James Moriarty’s black sedan coming down the paved road from the compound. 

_Wishing us luck, I suspect,_ he decided, ducking down under the water again to get the heat and the last of the grime from his face. He hung in the gentle rock of a larger wave, arms akimbo, legs wide, the cobalt water washed with the sun’s amber light.

_Please come with me, before we both disappear…_

The same voice, deep and somehow sad. The memory, so clear and vivid that it was as though he were actually _hearing_ it now, washed over him with more force than the wane of the wave. He opened his eyes underwater at the jolt it gave him. 

He’d told no one about the voice, the figure he felt beside him sometimes. The sound of that laugh and even the _smell_ coming back to him, but never the face or the name. 

He’d told no one, not even James. The mission was going off tomorrow and he would have no one doubting him. He would let no one down again. 

Closing his eyes tight, he broke the surface again, his feet digging. He wiped his eyes, cleared them, and looked toward the beach. 

A lone figure standing there. Tall, ghostly pale, thin, a towel in his hand—

_Shouldn’t have walked down here on your own_

“John!” James Moriarty called, a smile on his face as he gestured forward with the hand not holding the towel. “Come in, my friend! You’ve got a 12-hour furlough for the evening, the colonel says.” 

That feeling of disorientation flooded him once again, queasiness hitting his stomach as he drew in a sharp breath. He clenched his eyes closed, shook his head, opened them again. 

Just James. James with a towel and a smile and a _best of luck, my friend_ coming and a 24-hour pass to find a beautiful, sensual body to sink his own _longing_ and body in.

Something ached down in his belly, in his chest that was not unlike pain. He felt his jaw clench, but he made himself smile at James. He made himself keep the smile as he came out of the water and back up onto the shore again.

“I didn’t want you to miss any of your last night out,” James said, hanging him the towel and meeting his eyes with that fond, reassuring look John had come to need. 

_Like a father. Like a father to him._

“Just cooling off,” John said. “Conrad challenged me to a race with loser buying the blokes the first round.”

“And you won, I assume from the smile on your face?”

John gave a modest shrug. “What can I say?”

James laughed. “Not a thing. You’re in the best shape of the lot and even the young men know it.” He curved an arm around John’s shoulder and gave him a fond pat. “Walk me to the car so I can wish you well.” 

The sun seemed to be sinking faster now, the sedan’s lights on and giving a soft glow as the two men walked to the bonnet. John moved to face Moriarty, scrubbing at his hair and looping the towel around his neck.

“I am sorry to see you off again, my friend,” Moriarty said softly, smiling gently and reaching a hand toward John. “May your journey be easier this time.”

John took his hand and gave it a firm clench. “Thank you, James,” he said. He meant it with all his heart. “For everything you’ve done for me.” 

Moriarty opened his arms and the two men embraced for a beat. John felt a lump in his throat, a confused emotion rising suddenly in him.

“It was my pleasure,” Moriarty said as John felt the other man’s palm touch his back again, soothing him. 

They separated, John looking down to hide what he knew was showing on his face. 

“Come now, no sadness, John,” James said, gripping him by the side of the throat and giving him a playful shake. “I’m sure you can find something to take your mind off things where you’re going tonight?”

He wanted someone to take his mind off _things_ , that much was certain. The strange fear, the longing. The heavy taste of something like grief. Flashes of people and things so strong they sent him reeling still. The things he couldn’t explain, things he hadn’t told any of them, not even James. 

Right now though, what he wanted was _someone_ , someone’s mouth and body on him. He wanted heat and sweat and – after – warm, damp sleep.

He laughed shyly, looked down as James’ smile widened. “I believe so, yes.”

 

**

 

“Think. Come on, Sherlock, _think._ ”

Sherlock dropped his hands from the focus knob on the microscope, turned his face to the side so he could speak in John’s general direction.

“Why are you hovering around me?” he snipped. “And how is telling me to “think” supposed to do anything but keep me from doing just that?”

“Because you’re not bloody working it out, are you?” John replied, his voice rising. “It’s been what…days? Weeks? Sherlock, _think!_ ”

“Yes, thank you for your enormous contribution but I need _quiet_ right now!”

John raised his hands just to his hips in his patented _I give up_ gesture and stalked toward the fire, grabbing the poker and stabbing at the flames.

Sherlock blew out a frustrated breath, returned his face to the eyepiece. Damaged blood cells, side by side. He stared at them, his mind whirring. 

Stapleton had been in four times in a fairly short period of time. “Gretchen” had disappeared ( _obviously,_ Sherlock had thought on hearing it), they’d gotten blood right away, she said. They were already finding _what they were looking for_.

Then a long darkness and lull that he realized, after, was anesthesia. His side ached from the biopsy and he was glad for it. He’d been losing touch with his body again.

Then Stapleton returned. A diagram of the antidote he’d been given, unmetabolized. Intact. It looked like an urchin, but its entire genetic structure had been broken down into a jumble of numbers and lines. 

“If it’s possible to alter the mechanism of its effect on the marrow—“ she’d said over the phone, but he’d hung up then. 

“Yes, yes, yes,” he’d snapped as he did so. An idiot would understand that.

“TH1…something about TH1 and mutation of it…” He mumbled it to himself, John turning to look at him as he went to the one of the bookshelves. “Something that caused a shift in autoimmune…” 

He trailed off, grabbing the ladder that moved along the bookshelf on a thin wooden rail. He pulled it around the smooth curve, stopped at one bank of shelves. He climbed, stopping four shelves high and grabbing a black leather-bound book.

“It’s a vaccine. I remember…”

“You’ve got it, don’t you?” John said from below him, arms crossed, a pleased expression beginning to crease his face.

Sherlock came down the ladder quickly, stood in front of him, flipping through the book, scanning pages…

“A vaccine that was replaced. Fairly recently. Rare disease, just two fatalities or so in the UK a year…” He flipped, his jaw clenching. “Dammit, John, help me _think!_ ”

“When you heard of this,” John said, standing a step closer. “Was it before or after we met?” 

Sherlock shook his head, grasping for the answer. “Mm…after,” he snapped.

“Think where we were when it came up. Where were we when you heard it?” John’s voice was monotone, patient. Calming.

Sherlock’s eyes moved from side to side, sifting the lines in the book as they moved back and forth. 

“We were at a table. We were eating.” _Yes, that was it._

“What were we eating?” 

John in front of him, hair longer, less gray. Collar of his black jacket turned up. Six months after they met. Six months…

“Chinese,” Sherlock realized. “We were eating Chinese. The jade pin. The smugglers and the jade pin.” 

And as he said it there they were, Sherlock just done explaining something to John, two fingers making an inverted “V” on the palm of the other hand. John talking about a patient at the surgery, a patient who’d just returned from the Far East, straight to hospital…

“You had a patient with Japanese encephalitis,” Sherlock said, his eyes wide. “You were talking about the new vaccine, Ixiaro. Something about the other—“

“The other vaccine was the Green Cross,” John said, his face showing he too recalled it right along with Sherlock. “They’d stopped using it because—“

“It mutated the TH1 cell, causing exaggerated immune response in the leucocytes,” Sherlock breathed, looking down, then up again.

“Some combination of Green Cross and this T-cell might enhance the cell’s effects?” John ventured.

Another beat, Sherlock’s eyes tracking back and forth at the air in front of him now. “The vaccine is an inactive virus, derived from the brains of mice. It might be possible to transpose the relevant genes. Transpose the genes and—“

“—enhance the antidote’s effects,” John finished, a smile coming. “Brilliant.”

“That would theoretically destroy the virus,” Sherlock muttered, still working it out. “Then it’s down to a stem-cell or donor marrow transplant.” 

“That would cure you,” John said, nodding, his eyes wide. “And all the rest of them as well.”

Now Sherlock did meet John’s eyes, a smiling coming. “I swear it just might.”

John shook his head, grinning as he took Sherlock’s face between his hands. “Amazing,” he said softly. Then he kissed Sherlock’s mouth, his cheek.

“Go,” he whispered, staying close.

“But—“ Sherlock’s arms had snaked around John with a sudden urge to hold him tight.

“Shh, no,” John soothed in a whisper. “I’m out there, remember? Moriarty has me and this takes away the biggest card he has to play. Take away his power and Mycroft will be able to get to me.”

Sherlock leaned back enough to look into John’s eyes. He touched their corners with his thumbs, emotion welling. “Thank you,” he said softly.

John shook his head, his smile warm. “I’m always here,” he whispered. “Now go.” He jerked his head toward the door to the wide hallway. “Get out of here.”

Sherlock nodded, loosened his grip, took a step back. He looked around the Study, taking it all in. The fire was burning low. Then, straightening his waistcoat, he let go of John and moved to the door, turning the heavy brass knob.

The door swung open to a wall of dark water. Sherlock hesitated, but only for a beat. Then he took a deep breath and stepped through.

*

He started in heavy darkness, breath held, sounds like being deep underwater throbbing in his ears. High above, he could make out a light, hear faint sounds through meters and meters of black water.

Humming. Soft and familiar and nearly entirely off-key. Someone talking, the awkward chirp of it.

The light seeped into the darkness in dancing rays, illuminating rough walls, ledges. He used them like a ladder’s rungs and climbed. His lungs burned. The light grew brighter, the humming louder now ( _Mrs. Hudson…_ He could hear her drawing breaths in between the measures now). The voice continued its litany ( _Molly…Molly reading a file_ ). 

The surface was close now, his lungs full to bursting. He blew out the long breath, sound rising with it. He could feel a comb smoothing through his hair.

_Oh my god Sherlock--_

The skin of the surface broke as he burst through it, eyes closing as he passed through and then opening again.

Mrs. Hudson’s eyes had already filled with tears. “Sherlock, you’re _here_ …”

“Go get Dr. Stapleton,” Molly said from the other side, her voice urgent. “Go now.”

“Oh thank heavens,” the older woman was saying, her voice a ruin of emotion, and he heard her footsteps as she moved quickly from the room.

“Sherlock,” Molly said gently. 

His eyes lolled and he tried to turn his head toward her. He had never felt this weak. _Never._ She had her hands on his head now, thumbs tracing his temples, turning his face toward her. He tried to reach for her but he could only manage to twitch a finger and brush the soft material of her jumper where it touched his arm as she was leaning over his face.

“G—“ he tried, shaking his head. The oxygen mask distorted it and he turned his head, trying to dislodge it against her hand on his temple.

“It’s all right,” Molly said gently. “Let me—“

“ _No,_ ” he gasped underneath the mask, and was relieved when Molly lifted it and pulled it down enough for him to draw a quick breath and speak. 

“Green…” he panted, the word just a breath of sound. 

She nodded. “’Green,’ okay. Green what?” Her thumbs were a gentle brush against his face.

“Green…cross.” He nodded as he said it, willing her to understand. 

“’Green cross,” she repeated. He nodded. “I don’t understand, I’m sorry.” She shook her head.

 _Oh for the love of…_ He rolled his eyes and Molly grinned and gave a little gust of a laugh. 

“I’m thick, I know,” she said. “We all are. Give me a bit more and I’ll catch on, I promise.” 

He was fading. His body was nearly gone and he hadn’t known it in the Study. He hadn’t known how closely he was toeing the line. It was like being tethered to a corpse. He hurt everywhere.

Flurry of footfalls coming in, Stapleton leaning in as Molly leaned back. He heard them talking, Molly telling her what he’d said, a rush of voices. 

“Green cross?” Stapleton asked, her hand on his forehead, searching his face. She mumbled the words to herself a few times under her breath. “Like…the vaccine? The Japanese encephalitis vaccine?” 

He jerked a nod, the “s” of _yes_ hissing out.

Stapleton’s eyes were darting back and forth over his face, pieces falling into place like the tumblers on a lock. He could see her mind working and his lip curled up. 

“It’s neurologically derived,” she was muttering. “Mice. TH1….” 

He saw the moment she had it, the moment she understood. She smiled down at him, smoothing his hair back from his face.

“You, Mr. Holmes, are bloody _brilliant_ ,” she said softly, replacing the oxygen mask. “Now do us all a favor and don’t expire while we work this out. Can you do that?”

Sherlock nodded, the smile curling a bit more beneath the mask.

“Good man,” she said, giving his head a tiny shake. Then she disappeared from beside the bed, footsteps retreating. 

He was vaguely aware of Mrs. Hudson and Molly moving back in, talking to him gently, softly touching him. He lost what they were saying but held onto the feel of their hands on him, closed his eyes, and fell back into a deep, deep sleep. 

 

**

La Cannelle was busy for a Thursday night, though from what Irene had seen in her time there, it never really had a “slow” night. This made sense when one considered the tight hold the Decency Laws had on most of the city and the fact that the club was one of the few places that offered services with rooms for various kinds of _recreation_ on site. 

What she did find rather dull about it all, though, was that every night tended to have regular customers, so the same bland faces showed up each week on any given night, an odd mix of men who simpered after her and ones who found her someone to impress and dominate.

She’d asked about the Marines discretely a few days after she arrived. Yes, they were new, she’d been told. One of the women had been with one of them and found him unremarkable. 

“A bit crude, if I’m honest,” the woman sniffed, taking a draw from the hookah in the dressing rooms beyond. “Not a talker. But then which of them is?”

So tonight she went for aloof and inscrutable at the corner of the bar, slim legs crossed as she ran one long finger along the rim of her glass. The wine within was good, a red as deep as blood. Only one man dared come up to her, asking her to dance. She could tell immediately he wanted mothering (and not her kind), so she sent him on his way to Bridget, one of the Coddlers, and returned to her cool appraisal of the club.

So she was ready when the commotion of the group of men entering together broke through the pulsing music of the place, her eyes drawn to the sound and the movement when they came in and moved to one of the upper levels where the large, circular booths gave them enough room to sit.

All foreign, Caucasian men, late-20s to early 40s. All in dark green and black camouflage utility uniforms, all wearing green berets that they removed in near-unison as they entered the place. 

And right in the middle of them, she realized with a start: John Watson. He was smoothing down his close-cropped hair as he tucked the beret through his belt and joined the boisterous men up the stairs.

She sat up straight, her mouth going dry. She watched him all the way up the stairs, through the railing of the balcony. He was laughing along with them, calling across the table as they took their seats, looking for all the world like he belonged there with those men here in this place.

 _How to approach him, to show him she was there?_ She didn’t want him to startle when he saw her, to compromise whatever role he was playing…

Their table secured, the Marines started calling out drink orders, and once that was sorted four of the men – including John – came back down the stairs toward the bar. He was facing her now, still talking to his comrades, though his eyes were wandering, taking in the place. She could tell he hadn’t been here before; his was the gaze of someone getting to know the lay of the place, not of someone looking for some particular person or thing. 

As he drew closer, his attention _did_ fall on her, and she steeled herself to meet his gaze while giving nothing away. 

There. His eyes on her face. 

What she saw was surprise, yes, but not at all in the way she expected. Something confused and almost pained flashed across his face, then it was gone in the space of a breath as he clamped a normal expression onto his face. 

She watched him force a faint smile her way. Then she watched his eyes track down her body and back to her face in an all-too-familiar way.

 _Oh God,_ she thought, stricken. _He doesn’t know who I am._

And worse, she realized, angry and sickened at the thought, he didn’t know who _he_ was either. She’d bet her life on it.

She managed to force a smile in return to his appraising look. She saw his ears pink a bit at the tips, his tongue coming out to run over his bottom lip.

She groaned inwardly. _Oh **fuck** ,_ she thought. _Now here’s a proper mess_. 

Then she watched whoever John Watson thought he was straightening his shoulders and coming her way.

**

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER FOURTEEN


	14. Chapter 14

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

 

The best thing about this undercover job, Lestrade decided, was first and foremost, getting to be warm and at the beach. The second was that it seemed to be a requirement that everyone who worked for Moriarty smoked. He’d worked himself back up to a full pack a day again after all those years of torment from quitting for his (ex) wife.

So here he was, standing outside the car service where Moriarty had his vehicles spit-shined and serviced, taking a long drag off a Turkish cigarette with one of the other Security men, a man of indeterminate Eastern European origins named (he said) Jozo. He was friendly enough, talking about women and annoyed at the late arrival of his employer.

“Mr. Moriarty is good boss,” he said at once point. “As long as you do what he say. To the letter, what he say.”

“Then what happens?” Lestrade asked. The sunset had been breathtaking over the water off the cliff side. Cargo boats were moving in slow lights now in the faint light.

Jozo chuckled. “No one knows,” he said wryly. “No one stays long enough to say.”

Lestrade nodded, trying to act nonchalant and impressed. It wasn’t surprising, of course, but nor was it the best of news…

“You new,” Jozo said, waving toward him. “You do fine. I hear things about you, good things. You do fine.”

Lestrade nodded, acknowledging the compliment, just as Jozo turned toward something in the distance. Headlights coming down the road.

“There he comes,” Jozo said, taking one last drag and stubbing out his cigarette. Lestrade did the same, straightening his black blazer over his crisp white shirt. His Glock was tucked in his shoulder holster, a comforting weight.

Simple job tonight. Moriarty would come here in his private car, switch to a limousine for a trip to the coast for a meeting. Jozo and Lestrade would join the driver and bodyguard for the trip. Easy and almost guaranteed to be uneventful.

Mostly what the night would be about was Lestrade’s first meeting with Moriarty. The bodyguard had interviewed him. The man who managed the house had given him the once-over behind a desk with folded hands after running the background check. Sassi had told him there had been questions asked about him in the market. Sassi had answered some himself.

“Highest recommendation,” he’d said, and Lestrade had thanked him and let him win at cards again.

The sedan’s tires crunched on the gravel as it pulled into the circular drive, stopping just in front of Jozo and Lestrade. The driver got out, a hard looking Tunisian man in a black suit, glancing at the two men as he came around the car to open the back passenger door in front of Lestrade. He followed Jozo’s lead and stood at what looked almost like military attention as the driver opened the door.

The bodyguard was out now too, glancing around. He wasn’t a huge man, but Lestrade could tell there was nothing but coiled muscle underneath the man’s perfectly tailored suit.

The door swung and Lestrade was able to see the resemblance of the elder Moriarty to his son immediately. It was in the angular, pale face beneath the graying beard, the sweep of the widow’s peak. The strange dance in the somewhat deeper blue of his eyes. He wore a gray suit with a diamond pin in his navy tie that probably cost half as much as the car.

He was smiling as he nodded toward Jozo, then focused his attention on Lestrade, who angled his head in a gesture of respect.

“Mr. Moriarty,” he said, taking Moriarty’s outstretched hand. An almost too-strong grip from a too-soft hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Oh the same, the same,” Moriarty said, reaching out with his other hand toward him to grip his upper arm. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Then Moriarty’s smile stayed, but something seemed to change in his eyes.

“So much.” The smile vanished. “Detective Inspector _Lestrade._ ”

There was no time to react. Jozo was on him, something striking him hard on the head. The world went to black before his body hit the ground.

 

**

The song was old but Irene knew it well. “Smooth Operator” by Sade, a London nightclub standard before she left the city all those years ago to become what she became. Something about the familiarity of it was comforting to her as she moved with John in her arms, with John’s arms around her, her mind racing.

Her cheek was against his, his breath warm in her ear. He was thinner, in fighting shape. The muscles of his back were taut as wire.

“Relax,” she whispered, stroking down the back of his uniform. “Relax…”

She felt him draw in a deep breath and let it out, trying to calm down.

“Sorry,” he murmured, and she turned her face to brush her lips against his cheek. He started a bit at the touch, drawing in a breath, yet another unfamiliar “tell” of his mental state. She found his nervousness charming and sweet and very, very sad.

Enough time had passed for this to be a “normal” interaction with a _guest_ prior to moving things to a more private place. If anyone was watching her – or him – there would be nothing suspicious if she took him to a room so she could speak to him freely, get a better read.

But the private room would bring other issues, as well. Irene was trained to understand, sense, read desire, and John’s was thrumming off him in waves.

“Would you like to join me in my room?” she murmured into his ear, hands moving around to take his by the wrist, halting their slow sway.

“I…can’t leave the club." He looked down at their now-joined hands.

“No, no,” she said lightly, leaning down a bit to look into his face. “My room’s here, just in the back.” She smiled her most gentle smile. “I think you’ll like it.”

As their eyes met, that same unsettled look flashed over his face.

“What is it?” she asked softly. “We don’t have to, you know. We can just stay here and dance.”

John shook his head. “No, it’s not that. You just…I feel like I’ve met you before.” He huffed a laugh. “Sorry, that sounds…you must hear things like that a lot.”

His eyes searched her face, and she was once again amazed at how much he looked like himself and yet _not_ like himself. John but a different John, someone who did not carry the strange, determined weariness she realized he always had in his body and his face.

She shook her head, keeping her face unguarded. “People don’t usually say it quite like that,” she murmured, stepped out of his embrace. She gave his hand a squeeze.

“Come with me now,” she said, and he followed her, one arm curled around her waist.

*

Intellectually, Irene knew that in the context of their current circumstance, if something were to happen between her and John in this room tonight that it should later be viewed by everyone involved as a moment of regrettable necessity. She would chide anyone who dared to show discomfort for being maudlin and not regarding it in the stark light of reason, and that would be that.

But then she and John got behind closed doors in her room, the lamps set low and the sheets on the opulent bed with its barred, wrought-iron headboard turned down against the far wall. Then John was moving to stand in front of her, his hands sliding onto her hips, his face coming close, and she knew that he would never live long enough to stop regretting this.

She could fuck him and simply put it away. But John would be horrified that his gallant attempts at acting as though he were _not_ attracted to her since their first meeting had been foiled, and he would feel horribly exposed to have been so intimate with her, his faux-rival for Sherlock’s attention.

And though she would be sorry about that, what she was most concerned about was the new tinge that would be on Sherlock’s face when he looked at her from here on out.

So when John leaned forward and kissed her lips softly, much more softly than the tension in his body wanted, she reached up to cradle his face.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” she asked as their lips parted. She curled her arms around his neck and gave him her best enigmatic smile.

A bit of awkward surprise crossed his face at the interruption. “Yeah, sure,” he said and released her, clearing his throat and stepping back.

“I just want to talk a bit first,” she soothed, reassuring him with a touch as she withdrew to the side table where she kept several bottles of good red wine, glasses. “Find out what you like. I like to know what people _like_.”

She watched his face in the mirror over the table as he looked at her, something in the phrase reaching down into him, as was her intent. She watched the ghost of a memory touch him and vanish again.

 _You’re in there somewhere, John Watson,_ she thought, keeping her eyes on him as he looked down, eyes scanning the floor as though he’d dropped something there. _But how to help you find yourself again…_

She took her time pouring, her mind turning over the options. There was the direct approach of course: she could drug him, call Mycroft and have them both whisked away. But this could doom Sherlock and the others with the virus. No one really understood John’s role in all this, and removing him could accelerate whatever Moriarty had planned.

Or she could confront him, tell him who she was, try to force his memory’s return. But she had no idea what had been done to him to get him to this point. Whatever it was had made him brittle in a troubling way, so that approach might do more harm than good. Plus, if she couldn’t take him with her tonight, returning his memory to him and then sending him back to Moriarty might put him in more jeopardy than he was already in.

John had sat down on the couch against the back wall, trying not to look awkward or uncertain and failing miserably.

“Tell me about yourself, John,” she said, replacing the cork on the bottle of wine.

He looked up, elbows on his knees, hands folded. “Um…not much to tell. Career military. That’s about it.”

“Hmm,” she replied. “Royal Marines from your insignia, I see. I bet you have lots of stories.”

He smiled faintly. “Not many I can share.”

She smiled back. “That’s me, as well.” He gave a nervous laugh.

She came toward him now, a wine glass in each hand, and sat next to him on the couch. She sat close as she knew he’d expect her to, turned toward him and crossed her legs. He looked at the slim line of her thigh and calf, then looked away, blushing.

“You’re shy,” she teased. It genuinely surprised her. She had never seen him as the type to be shy in the bedroom. The thought of that between him and Sherlock charmed her.

“A bit, yeah,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “I just don’t usually…” He gestured around.

“Pay women for sex?” she supplied, and he looked at her to see if he’d given offense. She gave him a cat-like smile.

“Well…yeah.”

 _Interesting…_ “So what’s the occasion?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No occasion, I just—“

She twirled her wine a bit in the glass. “Mmm, it either means you haven’t been here in Tunis long enough to have started a relationship and have just gotten tired of tossing off,” she said, watching his ears go scarlet with that, “ _Or_ you’re about to be off somewhere and want to have a particularly _special_ evening before you go.” She took a sip.

“Maybe,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked at her, and he could see he was intrigued by the attention, the line of conversation.

_Bless, he always did like to be sussed out…_

“Since you came in with all your mates, I’d say it’s the latter.”

He smiled faintly. “Perhaps.”

She nodded, not liking the sound of that. She didn’t have much time then. She needed to have some idea of what was happening to him, was about to happen to him in the cage Moriarty had him in. And to do that, she was going to have to rattle the bars a bit.

_Time to take control of this._

“Take your shirt off,” she said in her best soft but imperious tone. He set his wine glass down and started unbuttoning his uniform top, revealing a dark green T-shirt underneath. When he slipped out of it, he folded it over once and draped it over the arm of the couch.

“That too,” she said. “I want to see you.”

He hesitated as he reached for it just as she knew he would, and she went in.

“You’ve got scars, I know.” She nodded toward his chest. His face shot toward her, eyes widening. “A crescent-shaped scar from a shot to the shoulder,” she began, stilling him as she touched herself there. “One down your sternum just here.” She drew a line to bisect her chest. “Another above your nipple to repair ribs that were broken on the left.” Her finger trailed over her own nipple, forming an arc there. “And then a large one _here_ …” Her finger moved like a knife over her left side.

His breathing had picked up, and not from desire. When he spoke, the words choked in his throat. “How…how do you know all that?” He shook his head, looked away. “Someone told you—“

“No,” she said softly. She let the silence stretch for a bit, let it sink into him like a stone. Then she leaned over, put down the wine glass, reached for his hand. “When you first saw me, something crossed your face. I saw it.”

He jerked a nod. “Yes.” The same choked sound of his voice.

She reached a hand out, stroked the side of his face. “What were you thinking? What did you see?”

He looked up into her eyes, his own welling with tears. “You…you slapped me across the face.”

She couldn’t help but give a bit of a smile. “Yes,” she whispered. “But you deserved it just then.”

He searched her face with his wide, wet eyes. “How do I know you?” he whispered urgently, leaning forward to grip her arm. He sounded terrified. “ _Please_ tell me. Sometimes I think—“

“—that you belong somewhere else,” she finished and nodded, her gaze boring into his, and damn it all if she didn’t feel emotion welling in her as well.

“ _Yes._ ” Relief, anguish washed over his face.

That’s when his face contorted, tightening down. A sound whispered in his throat that sounded pained.

“I can’t do this,” he blurted suddenly, too loud in the quiet of the room. He shot to his feet. “I have to go, I can’t do this.”

“John,” she called, following him to where he’d stopped a few steps away, his hands covering his face. She touched his back, felt him trembling. “It’s all right—“

“It’s bloody well _not_!” Then he spun and had her by the upper arms, pushing her backward, his mouth twisted in rage. Her back hit the wall, not hard enough to hurt her but hard enough that the sound made her pull in a breath.

“Shhh…” she soothed, leaning her face closer. “It’s all right, John. Shhhh…”

“Who the _hell_ are you?” he hissed, words rushing out. “Why are you fucking with my head?” He gave her a shake. “You’re trying to get me killed, aren’t you? You’re trying to--“

“I’m trying to keep you _safe_ ,” she said, her voice cutting sharp. “I don’t want you hurt any more than you have been.”

The words enraged him even further, his mouth twisting. He thumped her against the wall again, but she just hardened her eyes and kept them on his.

“What the _fuck_ do you know about my pain, mm?” he growled.

“Let go of me and I’ll show you.” She said it softly, and the words and the tone surprised him enough that he relented. He let her go.

John was panting now, his chest heaving, emotion held just in check. She let her eyes bore into his as she reached back and eased down the zipper of her dress. At her shoulder blades, she shifted her arms and slid it the rest of the way.

With an ordinary client she would have given him wine after they'd come into the room, then gone to her dressing area to change. She would have put on the corset she’d had so carefully designed and hidden all this away.

One shoulder off, John’s eyes darting to it at the promise of revealed skin. The other. Then she let the front of the dress fall away.

John’s eyes fell to her breasts, her body. He swallowed a choked sound.

“This is what I know about your pain,” she said, keeping her voice and eyes steady. “I was hurt when you were hurt. For the same reason and by the same man.”

He was still breathing hard, his eyes on her body. He reached out, hand trembling, and cupped his palm gently around the ragged shape of her left breast, his thumb touching the tiny pucker of what was left of her nipple there.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.” His thumb smoothed again.

“Those things you see in your mind,” she murmured, touching his cheek. “You need to pay attention to them. All those faces, those voices. Do you understand?”

The pained look bloomed again, his teeth clenching as he winced. Then he spun and went back to the couch, grabbing his uniform top, and the one thing she was certain of in that moment was that she could not let him go back out to that group of Moriarty’s men in a state like this.

She had one way to stop him and, jerking up her dress, she used it.

She crossed the room, zipping the dress as she went. When she reached him, she slid her arms around his neck and pulled him to her, hard, pressing against him.

“Kiss me,” she said as she rushed in, biting his lower lip. The sudden pain shocked him, his body starting. She pressed in again, nipping at him again and his mouth opened, her tongue sliding in.

A hand down his body and he was hers, nails scratching as her fingers went down his T-shirt and cupped around him.

They kissed and kissed, Irene teasing, pushing him. Finally she could tell the rage and confusion had been supplanted completely and she eased him away. He made a small sound of protest.

“I’m going to get someone for you,” she whispered against his face.

“No, I want—“

“Yes,” she said firmly, smoothing her finger over his cheek. “I know you need this right now and I can’t give it to you. You’ll have to trust me, yeah? Will you trust me on this?”

He was breathing hard and he nodded, still trying to brush her lips.

“Get undressed and get in the bed.” Irene brushed at the back of his head, pushing him gently away. “Go.” Then she brushed his forehead and, reluctantly, he turned away from her. She withdrew toward the door.

*

Ten minutes later Irene was moving through the bodies on the dance floor, her hand finally sliding around the waist of the woman she’d been looking for in the throng. She pressed against Lily’s smooth back, face buried in her long black hair and breathing her in.

Lily leaned back into her, accepting the kiss Irene pressed beneath her ear.

“Do something for me?” Irene murmured.

“Mmm,” Lily said, returning the kiss. “Yes, please.”

Irene smiled. “There’s someone in my room I need you to take.”

“Not your type?” Lily teased, and Irene shook her head.

“He’s lovely. Just can’t give him what he needs.”

Lily nodded. “Sure,” she said, studying Irene’s face. “You okay?”

Irene felt the mask slipping, knew she needed to withdraw, get back to her place at the edge of the bar, back behind the walls she’d worked so many years to make.

“Fine,” she said, her lips brushing Lily’s earlobe again. “Love him, okay? I’ll pay you for it later if you will.”

Lily smiled softly. “Fair enough, darling,” she whispered, and touched Irene’s lips with her own just before Irene released her and slipped away.

 

**

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER FIFTEEN


	15. Chapter 15

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

 

Morning of the fifth day since Sherlock had come out of his trance, and Mycroft Holmes once again found himself watching the sun rise through the windows of his brother’s hospital room, the warm autumn light coming into the room a strange relief. The night had been a hard one, harder than the last, and Mycroft had felt the exhaustion, the grief, settling in there in the darkness. Something about the sun rising made it seem not quite as heavy as it had been. 

Sherlock slept, still except for the rapid rise and fall of his chest. Dark hair in disarray, pale face wearing several days’ worth of stubble, the faint beard beneath his breathing mask making him look ragged and wan. His ribs stood out in ridges on his chest where his white pajama top had been opened to allow easy access to monitor wires and IV ports. 

Stapleton’s team had been synthesizing the antidote as they had isolated it from “Gretchen’s” last dose, but Sherlock’s condition had begun to deteriorate. Gretchen, of course, had disappeared after her encounter with Molly, clearly realizing that her cover on Stapleton’s team had been irrevocably compromised. And while Mycroft had tried to locate her with every resource at his disposal, she seemed to have vanished into air.

“It appears to be a staged vaccine,” Stapleton said softly when she came to administer it the third morning, Sherlock sound asleep. “Each dose designed to work with the advance of the disease.”

“So the disease has been worsening regardless of the antidote?” Mycroft asked. He wanted everything very clear. 

“Yes, but she was constantly dosing him with a different iteration of the antidote to keep him alive, keep him relatively stable,” Stapleton replied, pressing the plunger on the syringe slowly, the dose sinking in amongst the islands of bruises in Sherlock’s belly. “So the disease is three days ahead of what the antidote we’re using can treat, and at this advanced stage, that appears to matter quite a bit.”

“Can’t you simply change the dosing?” 

“Mr. Holmes, with all due respect, I and my team are working with a synthetic chemical compound we are only just beginning to understand. To create a staged version of this frankly _dodgy_ antidote would require me to pull an entire portion of my people to work on it and I can’t spare them. I want your brother _well_ , Mr. Holmes. I want the other patients _well_. But more than that, I want this threat eliminated. _That’s_ the task I’ve been charged with, yes?”

Mycroft had swallowed then, suitably chastised. “Of course,” he said softly. “Of course it is.”

But it was hard to be so certain as he watched Sherlock move in and out of consciousness, the waking moments filled with pain and a desperate kind of anger Mycroft had no idea how to ease.

“How could you let—“ his brother choked, chest heaving, wild eyes the color of sea glass pinning him with rebuke. “What use are you—“

“Sherlock, shhh…” Mrs. Hudson chided, her tired face illuminated in the dim light of the bedside lamp. “I know you’re in pain but don’t talk to your brother like that. He’s doing all he can.”

“It’s quite all right,” Mycroft had said from his side of the bed, forcing a terse smile. Sherlock’s head lolled back and forth between them. 

“It’s not,” she fussed quietly, hand on Sherlock’s forehead. She sounded angry, at the end of her rope. “Honestly, if you both learn nothing from this whole thing I hope it’s what you mean to one another.” She glared at both of them in turn. “And I hope you’ll learn to speak to one another with the respect you both deserve from here on out.”

Mycroft had said nothing to that, and Sherlock’s eyes had turned back to him. A slow blink and he’d closed his eyes and said nothing else.

Now dawn was approaching and Sherlock’s breathing had picked up, his thin chest moving in shallow, quick breaths. Mycroft stood and leaned over his brother, repeating Mrs. Hudson’s gesture as he smoothed Sherlock’s unruly hair back from his face. 

He hadn’t told Sherlock anything about his phone call with Irene Adler three nights ago. Though he trusted (to some extent) his brother’s ability to compartmentalize his emotions under normal circumstances, telling Sherlock about John’s inability to remember who he was and his new identity wasn’t something his brother would take with grace on a _good_ day. 

“What do you want me to do?” Irene had asked after telling him of her encounter with John at the club the night before, her voice clear as in the next room from the satellite phone. “I know I can’t just lure him back and pull him out.”

“No, Dr. Stapleton feels, as do my….sources, that Sherlock and the others are simply test cases for a broader application of this virus,” he’d said. “Any move against Moriarty, including any attempt to recover John, might accelerate that plan. Everything needs to stay in place as we wait on Dr. Stapleton and her team.”

He’d been in the private office he’d had set up on the floor, a cup of tea going cold on the neat desk as they spoke. Frustration had roiled in him, and he’d nearly rubbed a blister in the knot of tension between his brows with a finger. “You believe Moriarty may be moving him, you say?”

“From what I saw last night, I would say yes,” she’d replied. “It looked like a ‘Boys’ Last Night Before Shipping Out’ to me.”

“But he was uninjured?” Mycroft pressed.

“Physically? Yes. Nothing new I could see.”

Mycroft sighed, weighing things. “All right then, we wait and hope Stapleton makes quick progress and that Greg Lestrade comes up with something on his end. Have you and he had any contact?”

A beat of hesitation. “No, but he said he’d be out of pocket for a bit.” The barest hitch in her voice. 

_Interesting,_ some distant voice in Mycroft’s mind chimed in. _Miss Adler’s gone and found herself a friend…_

“If Lestrade is able to come up with information that John’s been moved out of Tunis, I want you both back in London immediately. I don’t want either of you there any longer than strictly necessary.”

“Why Mycroft Holmes, I never knew you _cared._ ” 

He could hear the tease she was going for, of course, but also the tension underneath. The latter concerned him. Whatever had happened with John had shaken her in some way, and she was having a hard time hiding completely. 

Best to leave her with it and not mention it, he decided, to give her time to put it in its place.

“Yes, quite moved,” he replied dryly, answering the tease and leaving the rest. “Keep me informed, Ms. Adler.” Then he ended the call.

“Mr. Holmes.” The voice behind him in the hospital room almost startled him from where he still leaned over Sherlock, his hand on his forehead, his eyes on the too-fast rising and falling of his brother’s chest. 

_Almost_ startled him. He turned and regarded Anthea with an impassive face.

“Yes, what is it?” 

She came forward, carrying an iPad between her hands, the screen facing her. Her face, usually impassive as glass, was pinched a bit. 

“This just came through for you,” she said softly, glancing at Sherlock in sleep. “In your private email, I’m afraid.” And she handed the iPad to him, sliding on the screen.

Mycroft looked down at the image of Greg Lestrade, clearly beaten to within an inch of his life. He was standing on a wooden chair in a white room made of concrete, and there was noose of red nylon cord around his neck.

He read the text of the email: 

_Clumsy violation of our implied rules, Mycroft, even for you. Enjoy. Watch the news._

Mycroft closed his eyes for just one beat, breathed in and out. _Christ…_

Irene Adler was right. His love for his brother had brought the situation to this. He never should have agreed to Lestrade and Adler going to Tunis. It had been a foolish, emotion-laden risk, for them and for him.

He had the plan in place and all prepared, the tools for Moriarty’s destruction at his disposal, and here he was, “The Iceman” allowing _sentiment_ (as Irene had chided him for so accurately) to stay his hand. The photograph of Lestrade was but a symptom of what else Mycroft was jeopardizing in his effort to save his brother’s life.

It wasn’t a question of Lestrade over Sherlock, or Lestrade over John. It was becoming a question of what Moriarty held versus what Mycroft held. It was becoming an issue of control, or – in a worst-case scenario – of saving face. He could wait no longer for Stapleton to complete her work, standing by while Moriarty stood by the world’s fuse with his gleefully lit match. 

He took in a deep breath, let it out slowly, staring down into Sherlock’s sleeping face.  
In the end, Mycroft’s sense of duty would not allow him to save his brother at the expense of losing everything else.

He reached for his phone, dialing. He met Anthea’s gaze – some emotion in hers for once , reading his resolve – as he waited. It picked up on the second ring.

“Yes.” Even in that one word, Mycroft could tell Mick Wheatley, U.S. Navy SEALS, was poised, on edge.

“Time to walk the dog,” Mycroft replied softly into the mouthpiece, nodding to Anthea. She returned the gesture, then she was gone.

 

**

Outside the thick drapes of the bedsit’s window, night fell for the fourth time since John had arrived in London, only dimming the light in the grim room a touch more as the sky faded to black. A small television was on in the corner, the volume turned low, a talk show host interviewing a woman who was crying, John could see, but he couldn’t hear the sound. 

He was perched on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, the jeans he’d purchased the day before turned up over his bare feet. He’d pulled a black sweater on while he was heating up beans for dinner, the Edmonton building apparently not quite ready to turn on the heat for the year. 

Four days since the night flight by helicopter to the airport in Tunis with Conrad and Fritz, the other two men recalling, with great gusto, the drinking contest Fritz had won the night before at the club as they went. 

For his part, John had sat staring out the small portal window, watching the lights of the helo play on the silver-black ocean and trying not to think.

“But what the fuck did Watson know about it?” Fritz called, knocking John out of the quiet he’d been in. “Too busy in the back rooms having it off!” 

John forced a smile, looked away. Conrad was laughing at him too.

“We had to bloody well drag you out of there by the ankles!” Conrad shouted. 

“Fuck off, both of you,” John called back, waving them off with a broad smile because he knew that’s exactly what he should do, what they expected of him. 

Sure enough, they were howling with laughter and back to ribbing one another in a beat, just in time for him to feel the choke of emotion as he remembered Lily underneath him, her dark eyes focused only on him as though nothing else existed for her, her breath coming fast, her entire body wrapped around him. She was murmuring such sweet encouragement to him as he pushed into her, the jolt of pleasure that hit him with his orgasm feeling sharp as pain. 

“No,” he’d moaned, feeling his face crumple, arms trembling, tears rushing in. “No, please…”

“Shhh, John,” Lily murmured beneath him. “It’s all right, love, shhh…” She cradled his face between her hands, drawing him down against her, a sob catching in his chest and welling into his throat.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped against her. “Please…”

“Why are you sorry?” she soothed gently, stroking his hair, her legs curling further around him, holding him inside her. “Darling, that was lovely…”

But he shook his head, burrowing his face into the pillow over her shoulder. 

She made a soft, pained sound. “Shhh…who’s hurt you?” she whispered against his cheek. “What’s happened to you? Come here...” 

Then she’d rolled him over onto his back and held him, shushing him and caressing him as, like a broken little boy, he’d literally cried himself to sleep.

He’d woken about 30 minutes later (it had felt much longer) to her curled against his side, his head thrown back and the tears dried on his face, her lips moving gently over his throat. He’d drawn in a deep breath.

“You’re all right,” she’d whispered in a voice like velvet, a palm on his chest, one thumb tracing his nipple in soft circles. “You’re safe…”

And he had been, he thought now, sitting on the edge of the narrow, rumpled bed, the television flickering its light around the room. He’d felt all right then, whatever had happened with the strange woman Elise lost in the burst of emotion and a post-coital weariness unlike any he’d ever experienced. 

But then someone had come to fetch him from the room (1:00 a.m. curfew the night before the mission), and he’d had to say goodbye to that kind and beautiful woman and burrow down into himself again.

On the bedside table, the alarm on his watch began to trill and he reached over to turn it off, putting the watch back on his wrist. He’d been worried he’d fall asleep before Fritz and Conrad returned with their report on Mycroft Holmes’ movements for the day. 

That was their assignment: recon, supply, and support. John, the mission’s commander, would be the one to take Holmes out.

He rose from the bed, pushing everything else but that away. Elise’s words and body; the memory of Lily; the deep, soft voice he kept hearing in his dreams, the way it said his name; the unsettling _pull_ of London making him uneasy, the whole place seeming otherworldly and strange.

 _Those things you see in your mind,_ the woman had said. _You need to pay attention to them._

 

 _Something is wrong,_ he decided. Something was terribly wrong with him.

The bubbling of the electric kettle heating up soothed him, something dully familiar in the sound. He pulled three white mugs from the cabinet, the chipped creamer and plastic bag of sugar, the plastic spoons. The soft knock came to the door right on time, the stroke of six o’clock.

“We’re set, we think,” Fritz said excitedly as the door closed behind he and Conrad, both unzipping their dark coats, color high on their cheeks from the cool night air. Fritz was carrying a brown paper shopping bag that he handed to John as he took off his coat.

“Yeah?” John said, forcing a normal tone to his voice. He glanced down in the bag, saw sandwiches, drinks, crisps, and realized he hadn’t eaten all day while he’d been waiting for them.

“Yeah,” Conrad replied, going to the counter for his mug to make his tea. John followed with the bag and began laying the supplies out. “Three days and the same pattern: basically living in that hospital on the top floor.” 

“We’re guessing the top floor is some sort of command center,” Fritz said, following John and picking a sandwich, tearing open the box it was in. “Using a hospital as a front, the bloody prick.” He took a huge bite, chewing as he shook his head.

“You’re sure he’s always going to the same place?” John asked, reaching for a sandwich, as well. 

Fritz continued, talking while he chewed. “Yea, Conrad wandered ‘round the lobby for a bit, waiting for him to come in. Saw him go up to the same floor every time. Needs a key card, that floor, but that’s no problem. I can put a hotbox card in the slot, burn us in.” 

“Security?” John asked, taking a bite as Conrad tore in, shaking his head.

“Just the blokes downstairs, the usual,” he said. “A lot when you get off upstairs, I’ll bet.”

John hesitated. “I mean, with Holmes himself. How’s he coming in?”

“Just an assistant, looks like,” Fritz said, waving it off as he reached for a bag of crisps. “Some bird with a mobile, tapping at it.” He mimicked it.

“No driver? No bodyguard?” John felt his brow coming down. 

Conrad shook his head. “Nah, nothin’ like that. If the higher-ups weren’t so set on not making a scene, we could probably pop him right there on the street and be home in time for tea.” He laughed.

John smiled as Fritz joined in the low laughing, and John forced a smile yet again. They were certainly enjoying all this, he thought.

But why wasn’t he?

“Something feels off,” he said, shaking his head as he looked down at the counter, setting the sandwich down. 

“What’s off?” Fritz protested, sounding genuinely piqued. “It’s the easiest assignment we’ve had in a year!”

“Yeah, and that’s just it, isn’t it?” John persisted, getting frustrated. “We’re Royal Marines, aren’t we? And this isn’t an extraction or a High-Profile Target hiding in Thailand or Laos. We’re talking about taking out what looks like a soft target in the middle of a bloody hospital in London, for Christ’s sake.” He looked at the two of them, at the flattening of their expressions as they looked back at him. “Seriously. This doesn’t sound just this side of odd?”

Conrad put his sandwich down, blew out a breath. “Listen, mate,” he said, speaking quietly. “Are you…you know…okay?”

“I’m fine,” John snapped in reply, but he could feel color come into his face.

“It’s just that I’ve been on this team with you for a long time and, well…I’ve never heard you doubting a mission before.” He looked at Fritz, who gave John a worried look and nodded, as well.

“I just think we should check—“

“We’re under orders for Radio Silence until the mission’s done,” Conrad cut in, his voice firmer now. “We can’t check in. Now we’ve been briefed on what this Holmes fellow is doing, what he’s capable of?”

John nodded, blowing out a breath. “Yes, but—“

“And you of all people know about that,” Fritz said, his voice lowering. “I saw what he did to you. Tried to drive you mad, as well, we hear.” 

John looked up, saw the look the other two men were giving him. The subtext of Fritz’s words were clear. _They’re doubting me,_ he realized. _They think I’ve lost my mind._

_Again._

Suddenly, he was flooded with shame. It snapped his back straight, his arms going involuntarily to his side, hands balling to fists, then relaxing again. 

“You’re right,” he said, managing a nervous laugh as he shook his head. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I just…” 

“Look, mate,” Conrad said gently, reaching out to grip is arm. “You’ve been through a metric-tonne of shite. We all know that. But there’s nothing changed about the man you were, yeah? And the man you were _always_ did the right thing.”

_”You always do the right thing, John. Do you understand? Say it with me.”_

“Yes,” he said softly. “I always do the right thing.” 

*

Later, the two men made their way to Fritz’s bed sit, Conrad standing by the table as Fritz opened the black satellite phone and dialed.

One ring. “You’re having a problem,” James Moriarty said on the speakerphone. Fritz was relieved to hear the flatness of his voice. He had expected it, clearly.

“Yes,” Conrad said. “Doesn’t remember anything but he’s having some doubts, I think.”

A pause. “Do you think he’ll stay on target?” Moriarty asked.

The two men looked at each other. Conrad nodded, gave a tiny shrug. 

“At this point, we believe so,” Fritz replied. 

A few more beats of quiet, then when Moriarty spoke again, he sounded like himself again. 

“I want you back by 21:00 hours tomorrow with this cleanly done. Give Watson every possible chance to fire the shot, but if it becomes clear he’s not going to manage it, I want him down.”

Then, almost as an afterthought: 

“I don’t care how or where.” 

 

**

After midnight, on Mycroft Holmes’ bedside table, a mobile rang.

“Yes.” He hadn’t been sleeping really – he had to consider every permutation and it was taxing even him a bit.

“Mr. Holmes, technically I should have waited until you got here to sign some sort of release before I just did what I did, but I hope you’ll understand that under these circumstances—“ Jacqui Stapleton was manic, exhausted.

“You’ve found it,” Mycroft said, eyes closing, something cold and heavy unhitching in him. 

 

**

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER SIXTEEN


	16. Chapter 16

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

 

The late night shift at the Red Cross Blood Bank in New York City was never what one would call an exciting job to have, but Evelyn Grissom did the best she could to entertain herself through the long night. 

On the Shift Board, the same official-looking memo was posted front and center, the notice that had come all those weeks ago blazing the logos of both the Department of Homeland Security and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in red across their headers. 

At first, Evelyn and all the other workers had been terrified by the things, warning of the potential threat of a viral agent being introduced into the blood supply. Everyone had sat in the mandatory meetings demonstrating how to screen for the virus with sharp attention, listening, watching the process on the projector screen. 

But that was weeks ago now, and frankly the extra shifts required for so many more tests to be done on the incoming supplies was starting to grate on Evelyn’s nerves. She was beginning to believe that this was yet another “Elevated Threat” from the people at Homeland Security that got everyone up in arms and then it turned out to be nothing in the end.

So as she punched the clock and made her way to the area where the new shipments of blood were coming in, she was bored already and got more so as she sat down at her station in the cold room and opened up the plastic crate to begin the testing. She did it all by rote, headphones on so no one would talk to her as she opened a bag from the top and began the test.

She’d just decided that it was her daughter’s new boyfriend who was keeping her child from calling more often when something on the slide she was looking at caught her attention instead.

Her brow squinted down over the eyepiece, finger adjusting the focus knob with care. She stared. Then she picked up the phone, dialing quickly and thinking _son of a bitch._

 

**

Mycroft Holmes called his driver and returned to the hospital after the phone call with Stapleton, wanting to be close if the vaccine Stapleton had developed and injected into his brother had adverse effects. He’d spent an hour with Sherlock when he’d first arrived and sat by with a book while his brother slept. Stapleton stayed close to her patient as well, coming in and out quietly as he sat. 

Tired, he’d retreated to his office down the hall a few doors. He left the lamp on over the telephone, drapes open and London asleep outside the window, which he watched silently from where he lay on the gray couch he had ordered brought in from his office across town. Head propped on the blue throw pillow, he faced the window and simply stared.

He turned and turned the puzzle of John Watson and his lack of memory over in his mind. It was a strange thing for Moriarty to do, oddly personal and a bit out of character. John was a singular man, certainly, but not in ways that would be useful enough to Moriarty for him to go to such lengths to keep John in his service. 

And if his goal was to torment Sherlock with John’s abduction, perhaps making John forget his life with Sherlock was part of that torment. But given what it would take to accomplish the modifications to John’s memory compared to how long Moriarty could have realistically expected Sherlock to live…

It didn’t make sense. Something didn’t make sense.

He was not military and sometimes (he was forced to admit), he had a difficult time being able to completely parse the meaning of some of the things that drove such men. 

With that in mind, he rose and made a phone call to the Special Operations Command in Stuttgart. He called in a favor. Actually he called in two.

Then he returned to his place on the couch, thinking things like _safe than sorry_ and _no harm there._ He wondered briefly if the tension and grief were getting the best of him.

In the midst of those thoughts, the phone rang. Mycroft looked over to see which of the dozen lines was calling in. 

U.N. Bioterrorism if _that_ light was on.

_Oh James,_ he winced, standing and going toward the desk. _So predictable and cruel._

 

**

Three o’clock in the morning and Irene Adler and Mick Wheatley were standing toe-to-toe in the middle of the living room of her flat, three other men in black long-sleeved tops and black cargo pants standing behind Mick with their arms crossed or their hands on their hips. Lily sat on the couch behind Irene, doing what she could to stare them down.

“Look, I don’t have _time_ for this,” Mick said, jaw clenching a bit as he leaned closer to Irene’s face, lowering his voice. “Excusing my language, but there is _no_ fucking way you’re tagging along on this.”

“I can take care of myself perfectly well, Mr. Wheatley,” she replied calmly, not the least bit cowed by his words or his face. “I just need you to get me past the grounds security and then I’ll be on my way.”

“Why?” Mick snapped.

Irene felt her own teeth clench in anger. “If you _must know_ , he has something of mine,” she lied. “I want it back.” 

The SEAL stared back at her, keen blue eyes sizing her up for a beat. 

“No,” he said, stepping back. “We are taking a big risk here already – every minute we delay is a minute more Moriarty has to get wind of a Spec Ops movement into Tunis. Now give me the information Mycroft wanted me to have on John and on Greg Lestrade’s cover before we went in.”

The men behind him seemed relieved to see him closing the conversation down. Irene felt her temper flare at the condescension on their faces.

“Just tell them, Irene,” Lily said from behind her, sounding bored, fatigued. Irene turned and glanced at her, surprised. Then she saw the look in Lily’s eyes and, her face turned away from Mick, let one side of her lip quirk in a smile that was gone when she turned her face back to him.

“All right, Commander, you win,” she said, sighing, and then began to speak. 

**

James Moriarty was awake as well, though he had changed from the suit he always wore during the day into a tailored white linen shirt and a pair of black trousers in deference to the hour. 

“Thank you, Mr. Deputy Secretary,” he said, his Korean smooth and precise. “It is good to have dealings with honorable men like yourself and His High Excellence who keep their agreements with other honorable men.”

“Of course, Mr. Moriarty,” the man on the other end of the line said, but again, there was that _hitch_. “The strike will come just after nightfall in the Eastern quarter of the city. It is all arranged.”

He’d had a small fire built in the fireplace, the breeze off the ocean going a bit cold tonight. He walked toward it, hand slinking into his pocket.

“I certainly hope so, Mr. Deputy Secretary, because if I don’t have word that missiles have landed in Seoul just after sundown, I will be forced to reconsider my interest in certain agreements I have with your government. I trust that’s clear.”

“Very clear,” the other man said. His tone was suitably respectful, chastised. 

_But he doesn’t sound afraid…_

Moriarty said nothing as this thought seeped in. He simply hung up the phone and set it down on the mantle again.

He stared into the fire for a long moment, playing the conversation over in his mind again, playing the details of all he’d set in motion this day. It pleased him deeply to think on all of it, of the calls that would come tomorrow that would give him so many more screws he could turn and turn. By this time tomorrow night, he would be the most powerful man in the world.

And though (if he were forced to be honest with himself) he and Jim had never really enjoyed each other’s company, he would have liked to have had Jim with him just then. His son loved a power play more than anything in the world. Perhaps seeing his father pull off this remarkable feat would have finally made him understand how superior his father was. The world at his knees for the vaccine, a new war to tax the resources of the West and destabilize the East. Sherlock Holmes soon dead from the virus to avenge his son, and Mycroft Holmes dead from a shot from Sherlock’s lover’s gun. 

_There’s a lesson for you, Jim,_ he thought, smiling into the flames. _That’s how it’s done._

But it _had_ been a lot to manage, and that was bound to make him a bit hyper-vigilant. The Deputy Secretary’s tone, for example. 

And that sound, like a soft padding in the corridor. He could swear he’d also heard it while he was on the phone, and there it was again.

He crossed the room quickly, swung open the door, and looked out into the dimly lit white of the corridor. 

Nothing and no one there, not even his servant for the night, Amir. He narrowed his eyes, listening. 

_Nothing there._

He closed the door, went back to the table beside his chair where the intercom sat. He touched the button.

“Why is there no one at my door, Amir?” he said softly into it.

A beat, then: “My apologies, Mr. Moriarty. I was just a moment in the washroom, sir.” 

Moriarty felt his shoulder relax. Just down one floor then. It was his footsteps he’d heard, no doubt. 

“Might I bring you something if it will continue to be a late night, sir? Coffee or a pipe perhaps?”

“A pipe, yes,” he said, and sat.

 

**

On the ground floor of Moriarty’s house, about 200 feet from where two of his guards lay garroted and pulled behind a dark sedan, Mick watched the image racing along on the dog handler’s small screen. Four other dead men were pushed against the high wall, tucked in the shadow thrown by the wall from the high gaslights. 

The picture from the camera mounted on the German Shepherd’s back was tinted slightly green, and every time she passed a hallway light fixture, the whole screen glowed for a beat.

“Door, Alice,” Martinez said quietly into the mic, and the dog stopped beside the wooden door instantly and pushed it with her muzzle again. It opened, revealing the dark wood staircase the dog had been using to explore the house once they’d shorted out the alarm device on a lower window and slid the dog in.

“All right, that’s it,” Mick whispered to the rest of the men clustered around them behind the garage. “She’s been through the whole house twice.” Littleton had been sketching the layout on a touchpad device as the dog moved through the house, and the blueprint of the interior took shape on the screen. 

“She’s positive on scent here, here, here, and here,” Martinez said softly, pointing at doors on the map. “A few big concentrations on each level.” 

“I think we can rule out the lower level,” Mick said, pointing at the bottom two. “Tunisian houses this size will have their kitchens on the lower floors. And I don’t think it’s Moriarty’s style to live in a basement anyway.”

“I agree,” Larimer, one of the sharpshooters, said from behind him. “That much hardware out at that front gate to get by and he’s going to feel comfortable about being upstairs.”

“Yeah, he’d want the view,” Newell whispered. 

“So that leaves us here and here – first and third floors,” Littleton murmured, pointing at the doors with his stylus.

“Third, I’m guessing,” Mick replied, and there was a general grunt of agreement from the group. “I think the first floor will be Security – plain clothes or those fake Marines.” 

“What do you want to do?” Larimer asked in a voice just above a whisper, and the rest of the men held still. Davies, the interpreter, blew a small bubble with this chewing gum and popped it against his teeth.

Mick considered, looking at the layout, the marked doors. 

“Let’s see how quickly and quietly we can get up to three,” he said. “We’ll spray the cameras as we go, hopefully get up there before the black-outs arouse too much suspicion. I think we do best if we can eliminate our Primary Target first, then work our way down while we look for the hostages. Maybe if we can let the men know they’ve lost their paycheck, we won’t have to do too much housework on the way.” 

“Somehow I’m doubting that,” Newell muttered.

“Worth a shot,” Mick shot back in a whisper. “I like to give people a choice to keep breathing if possible. Otherwise I feel like a 14-year-old boy shooting up ‘Call of Duty’ and playing with his dick.” 

Newell laughed and looked away. “Fair enough,” he said, and checked his H&K MP5N, the squat barrel of the assault rifle just peeking out from beneath his arm. 

“But if we _do_ get into the shit,” Mick cautioned, “remember that we’ve got two of ours in there – one of whom might be shooting back – and pick your targets with care. Understood?”

Another grunt of agreement from the assembled men. 

“Okay, Martinez, get Alice back and out of the way,” he said. “Five minutes for Weapons Check. Let’s do this clean.”

*

At the entrance to the compound, three figures moved out from behind a grove of lush palm trees, moved along the wall lithely, quickly. Irene pulled the collar of the white trench up closer around her throat, hand that held the silver HFC Glock 17 tucked just inside the wide pocket. Lily and Yasmin – the woman from La Cannelle whom Lily knew had been in the house before – followed close behind. 

“There’s a guard in the guard house, and usually two security checking the cars,” Yasmin said, pointing toward the small enclosure that sat at the center of the gate. One side of the gate was now open a few feet. No one was there just then, and Irene moved forward to the enclosure, staying as much in the dark as she could.

“Correction,” she said softly, peering in at the bodies piled inside. “There _were_ guards and two security checking the cars.” 

She shook her head, impressed, looked back at Lily and Yasmin. 

“I must say, I like these Spec Ops men,” she said, smiling wryly. “Just follow the trail of bodies to the safe way in.”

**

Just after 5:00 a.m., rain pattering on the sides of the cab, and John Watson rode alone in the back, hand resting on the top of the duffel beside him. The streams of rain on the passenger window turned the lights of the London Eye and the buildings on the skyline to tiny bursts of gold and red and white.

About 10 more minutes to the meeting point, Fritz and Conrad there two hours and one hour before, respectively. They’d done everything they could not to draw any attention, all dressed in civilian clothes, all carrying their weapons and equipment in different types of cases or bags. John even wore a flat wool cap to hide his military haircut, leaving nothing to chance.

The cabbie had shown him no interest, listening to someone talking on the radio. The wipers tapped out a rhythm over the sound.

Everything was set. Fritz was on recon after midnight and reported that Holmes had returned to the hospital and was staying in his office, and this news had set the operation in motion.

He should feel…something. Something more than he felt right now. Nervous or on edge or excited, as the other two men were. But instead he felt uncertain, his emotions just below the surface as they’d been with Lily. He felt vulnerable and fragile and off-kilter. 

He sighed, closed his eyes and willed some calm back into him. When he opened them again, a deep breath let out, he focused on the Eye off in the distance.

_Eye **sore** is more like it…_

That same voice again – deep and familiar. He could hear his own amused huff of breath in reply.

_Clara who’s Clara I’m a fake it’s a magic trick I don’t have **friends** what **would** you like me to see?_

“Oh Christ,” he whispered, holding his forehead. There was pain rushing in with the memories, as though the memories themselves had triggered physical pain.

_you always do the right thing say it with me now…_

Mycroft Holmes’ face over his in a dimly lit room, a stream of pain burning up his arm. Mycroft Holmes had done this to him. 

Mycroft Holmes had driven him insane.

His breathing had picked up, sweat popping out on his forehead. He felt sick. 

_I have to tell them,_ he thought. He had to tell Conrad and Fritz to go on without him. He was endangering the mission. He was endangering—

“Here you are,” the cabbie said. John didn’t even realize the cab had stopped near the corner on a dark and empty street. He looked around, getting his bearings, reminding himself what he was doing, what he was carrying, why he was here. He could see the hospital, windows here and there softly lit, a few blocks away.

“Yeah…ta,” he said, digging in the pocket of his leather jacket for money to pay. Then he was out on the street with his bag and his jacket zipped against the cold.

John walked to the rendezvous as if in a daze. He kept his head down and tried not to think. He tried not hear the things he was hearing or see the flashes of image and feeling that were crowding into his mind. The rain came down, soaking his cap after a block or two along with his socks and the turn-ups on his jeans. 

When he reached the all-night coffee shop, Fritz and Conrad were waiting for him, both of them standing underneath the awning out of the rain with their hands sunk deep in the pockets of their jackets. Everything he was holding back must have been on his face: they nodded to him, but then Fritz’s brows creased as he looked more closely at John’s face.

“You okay there, John?” he asked, but his tone was clipped, almost impatient right away. It made John feel ashamed.

He nodded, but he couldn’t meet either of their eyes. His gaze stayed down. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good.”

He tried to shake it all off, the odd memories-not-memories, the voice in his mind, the image of someone looming over him. The pain that seemed to accompany so much of his attempts to focus on single sounds or things he could see. 

Fritz and Conrad were his friends, had been for years. They’d been through so much together. They’d helped save his life when he was injured last year.

_Hadn’t they?_

He thought back on it, to that terrible moment of pain in the helo, the faces around him. He thought of the men around the table at La Cannelle, his fellow Marines. He thought of Fritz and Conrad and all of them who survived the helo crash in Afghanistan.

_Just pass out but don’t die stay right above that_

The faces over him came suddenly clear. No Fritz. No Conrad. No Lanham. No Kurtz. These images in his mind were all of completely different men.

_None of them were there my God what’s happened to me_

He shook his head, viciously shoved it down. He felt anger flaring in him and struggled to hold it down. Finally he squared his shoulders, all business again. 

“Let’s get this done and go home,” he said gruffly and started walking, the two other men falling in behind him. One block, two, toward the quiet hospital dotted with lights. 

Into the lobby, where Fritz suddenly grabbed his and Conrad’s arms and pulled them toward the drinking fountain and Men’s loo. 

“What—?” John hissed, and Fritz _shhh_ at him in return, blocking him and Conrad with his broad shoulders and dark jacket.

The lobby was deserted except for one person – an older woman who must have been right behind them when they came in. 

“One of Holmes’ people,” Fritz explained under his breath.

“Who bloody cares?” John shot back in a hiss. “Jerking us over here was bound to draw more attention in the end, yeah? It’s not like she’d recognize us by bloody _sight_.”

He was almost angry enough to miss the look that crossed Fritz’s face in a blink. Something anxious and afraid. 

John watched the woman (60s?) go toward the elevator, fumbling in her pocket to draw out a card. Then she got onto the elevator and the doors closed.

All three men turned and watched the elevator’s floor location lights go up and up, all the way to the top floor to Mycroft Holmes’ command center, just as Fritz had said.

“Ready, mates?” Conrad said, jerking his head toward the elevator. John looked at Fritz, still wondering what had made him afraid. Fritz looked back at John, something knowing on his face.

“Yeah,” John said, giving Fritz a hint of a smile, and headed across the lobby together.

It took a long time for the elevator to come back down. Once the door opened finally, John had begun to sweat. They stepped inside, into the cool space, into the faint smell of the woman’s perfume.

John blinked. Blinked again.

The doors closed and Conrad was pulling his tools for the card reader out of his bag. The lobby had been empty when the doors closed, so they had a bit of time.

John’s mind was racing:

_That smell. The hallway downstairs, the short corridor to her flat on the first floor. Smelled like tea and the occasional cigarette or cake, but the perfume, it was all over the place…_

“Fifteen seconds,” Fritz said, going into his duffel for his clips and H&K assault rifle and radio. John did the same, digging through the bag and pulling everything out, clipping on the radio, putting on the headset. 

_She knows me, that woman. Fritz knew she would recognize me. He knew—_

John’s breath was shaking out of him a bit, his mouth going dry. He eased out of the jacket down to a long-sleeved black thermal shirt that he tucked quickly into his jeans. Then he slid the H&K over his shoulder on its strap.

_That place where this woman lived. That was my life before._

But before what he couldn’t tell. It was all melting, morphing into itself behind his eyes now, something tearing loose in his head. He tried to concentrate enough to settle himself on _one_ truth…

He waited. He watched his own hand reach into the duffel and pull out his personal Glock. He watched himself stand up, felt his eyes look down to where Conrad was crouched over his bag, the elevator rising and rising around them. He watched himself glance at Fritz, fussing with his headset to settle it over the wool hat he wore.

He watched his arm jerk up as he said the one truth he’d settled on in the swirl of his mind. The Glock came up, his thumb pulled in the hammer back.

_These--_

A silenced shot, a surprised yelp. 

_\--are very--_

A second _ping_ of a shot, this one catching Conrad straight in the face as he’d jerked his head up at the sound.

_\--bad men._

John looked down at them, breath hissing from between his teeth, his eyes wild and wide, hand still holding the Glock on Conrad, as though the still form might rise again. The elevator rose and John looked up at the lights. 

He braced himself, drawing in a shaking breath, ignoring the coppery smell of blood filling the tiny space, ignoring the speckles of it warm on his face. Instead he tucked the Glock beneath his belt at the small of his back, unshouldered the H&K, aiming it at the ruined doors. 

Five more floors to go to whatever was waiting for him there. 

 

**

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


	17. Chapter 17

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

 

Will Rutherford was a man who liked his work. Well, not the work itself, more the way it gave him, most of the time, the ability to do whatever the hell he wanted at any given moment. Ever since he’d been moved over to this odd cover duty from his post at the front gate, Rutherford had found himself wishing this whole “Royal Marine” bit would continue indefinitely. He could put on a snappy uniform and wander around town getting drunk and laid forever.

He’d said as much to David Middles earlier after a pint, but Middles had shaken his head.

“Won’t be much longer now,” the other man had mumbled into his glass. “Whatever the Old Man’s been working on’s started, I think. That short bloke, Watson, left with Conrad and Fritz in full gear for whatever Watson’s meant to take care of. Imagine we’ll be back walking the gate in a week.”

They’d taken to calling Moriarty “The Old Man” behind his back. They’d taken to daring to make jokes about him here and there, which felt downright dangerous considering that they knew first-hand what Moriarty was capable of doing to people. But the truth was, Moriarty had changed in the past year or so. Everyone was making money still, sure, and business was pretty much _as usual_ with the number of people they were putting the screws to here and abroad. 

But something about Moriarty was different, they’d all agreed, a way that made Middles and Rutherford and the rest of the men who’d worked closely with him all these years let down their guard a bit. It was something a little bit erratic and vulnerable that made them all feel a little safer, at ease enough to have some fun at Moriarty’s expense. 

Well, behind his back at least. But even Middles had glanced around even as he’d used the nickname and taken a sip of his beer. If anyone would tear your tongue out and show it to you for saying something you shouldn’t, it was James Moriarty, and all of them were smart enough to keep that in mind.

There in his private room in the enormous house on Moriarty’s compound, Rutherford sighed, coming out of his Royal Marines camouflage shirt, his hat, tossing both on his still-unmade bed. That he’d be back at the gate might be true, but damned if he wouldn’t do everything he could to enjoy this little bit of theatrics while it lasted. He’d already had more sex and good food and more nights lost to drinking than he had in a year, prowling the clubs with the other men, and he planned on keeping the streak going as long as he could. 

He was just thinking he wouldn’t mind paying a visit to the kitchen to see if there was more about when he heard a tap at the door.  
The door had a peephole and he looked through it, the prickles of nerves that had irrationally bloomed on the back of his neck easing immediately at the sight that greeted him, that of Yasmin – his favorite at the club – giving him a sultry smile in the fisheye lens. Two other women were standing with her, and he recognized both of them from the club, as well.

“Well,” Rutherford said as he opened the door, leaning on its frame in a way that he knew showed off the cut of muscles on his chest. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

Yasmin’s smile widened. “Not here for you this time, lover,” she replied, looking up and down his body with what looked like actual regret. He felt the look in his dick. 

“Well, there’s a pity,” he said, returning the leering look. “Who are the lucky ones this time then?” He gave the other two – Lilly and the new woman he hadn’t had a go with yet. Elise. That was her name. He loved the way she met his eyes just then, promising a challenge that he’d take her up on next time he was in.

“Oh, just one,” Yasmin said. “Mr. Moriarty requested some company, the three of us by name, in fact.”

“You’re joking,” Rutherford replied. He was genuinely shocked. Everyone assumed Moriarty was a poof.

“Swear to God,” Yasmin said. “The only problem is we’ve got turned around in this palace of his. He told us where to go and we can’t find it now.” 

She could look like such the little girl when she wanted to, all big eyes looking at him beneath her long lashes and coyly cocked head. God, he loved it…

“I’ll take you up to him.” Then he leaned closer to Yasmin, their noses almost touching. “But only if you come back down when you’re through, yeah?”

She pursed her lips, touching his with a teasing brush. “You betcha, lover,” she said, then leaned forward. “I won’t even wash before I come down. How’s that?” 

The woman Elise gave him a dirty little smile, Lilly a wink. Rutherford grinned, reached around and squeezed Yasmin’s ass.

“Be just a sec,” he said, and turned to get dressed.

**

The elevator gave its quiet ring as it reached the top floor, and John’s gaze jerked down from the line of numbers and to the doors about to open, hands tightening on the cool of the blunt-nosed machine gun, a new line of sweat making its way down his temple to his throat. He struggled to focus, to stand in the center of the swirling maelstrom in his head.

“Christ, hold it together,” he whispered to himself as the car bumped gently to a halt. “Hold it together…”

_Mycroft Holmes has done this. Mycroft Holmes has made you insane._

Mycroft Holmes would pay.

The doors opened onto a dim small lobby area, a Nurses Station about 10 feet away. Two women in soft green scrubs and thick cardigans were sipping from mugs at the station’s far end, not looking up at the sound of the doors. 

The sight of them snapped John into motion, rote instinct taking over. He stepped forward quickly, closing the distance to the counter’s edge. By the time the women glanced up at the motion, he was aiming the machine gun right at them.

“Quiet!” he hissed. “Don’t make a sound. Do as I say and you’ll be fine, understand?”

To their credit, neither of the nurses made a sound themselves, though one clattered her mug on the counter as she sat it down. Tears rushed to her eyes at the noise as John’s eyes shot toward it and back again.

Behind him, the lift doors tried to close, stopped by Fritz’s arm, which had fallen out over the threshold. The doors touched it, opened, slid closed, jerked, opened again. John did his best to ignore it.

“How many more on the floor?” John whispered, raising the gun a bit higher toward their faces as they hesitated. “How many?”

“No one,” one of the women said softly, her voice shaking. “Just the two of us until 6:00.”

“Not nurses, Security for Christ’s sake!” he said impatiently, his volume rising a bit. 

“Just the card swipe in the elevator and the cameras,” the taller woman rushed to reply. “Mr. Holmes sent the guards home a bit early before the next ones come on at 6:00 as well.”

John shook his head. “That doesn’t even make sense,” he spat. “Where’s the rest of them? The command center? _Where is it?!_ ”

“This isn’t—it’s—we’re—“ She shook her head, swallowed, gathered herself. “This is a hospital, sir. Just a hospital. This is a Special Intensive Care ward and that’s all.”

John swallowed now as well, feeling the sweat like ice on his skin. He searched her face and thought how much it looked like she was telling him the truth.

She spoke again, hands out in a calming gesture, palms out. “There’s just the two of us until 6:00,” she said again.

John glanced at the clock above their heads. That gave him 22 minutes. Plenty of time to put a bullet in that careless bastard’s head. 

He felt a rush of adrenaline as the thought of finally, _finally_ killing the man surged in.

Gaze darting, he saw the two cameras in the lobby area. He shouldered the machine gun quickly, reached for the Glock with its silencer tucked into the back of his trousers. He drew it out, aimed, hit both cameras, glass and shards of plastic raining down. He tucked the handgun beneath his belt again, swung the machine gun back into his hands.

“If either of you have mobiles on you, put them down on the counter now.” They both did. “Now…supply closet, records room, that sort of thing.”

“Th-that way,” the shorter, younger woman said, pointing down the hall. 

John nodded toward it, his eyes not leaving them. “Right. Move.”

They startled like chickens, coming around the station.

“Oh my God,” the older nurse gasped, covering her mouth as she saw Fritz and Conrad in the lift as they passed it, the door coming open again. A faint gunpowdered smoke and smell of blood was wafting out into the corridor. “Please, let me—“

“No need,” John said, gesturing with the gun again. “Now _move_.” 

They scurried, small frightened sounds coming from their throats, hands over their mouths and nose. John followed them as they hurried down the main corridor to the first door on the right and went in. He stood in the doorway, took a quick inventory of the room: cups, ice machine, refrigerator, sink. No computer or phone. It would do. 

“Now I want you to stay in here, yeah?” he said softly. “If this door opens and I see you come out, I will shoot you. Do you understand?”

They nodded, pressed against the furthest wall, gripping each other’s arms. Both of their eyes were red-rimmed and filled with tears. He regretted it, an ache forming in his chest.

“Please don’t hurt him,” the taller one said, her dark eyes more anguished now. “Mr. Holmes. _Please._.”

John felt his jaw clench, color flood his face. He grabbed the doorknob and closed the thick door on them, using all of his self-control not to slam the thing.  
With them out of sight, he put a hand on the door to calm himself, slow his breathing. Then he looked down the hallway, the sun just starting to come up and sending a blue-gray glow down from the window at the short corridor’s end. He could see an angular halo of yellow light glowing on the floor in front of one of the rooms where the door was open halfway. 

All of the other doors (five) were closed. The hallway was silent except for the sound of someone speaking softly from the open room and the faint electric hum floating from the hallway’s dim fire exit sign.

John swallowed, gripped the gun more tightly, and went toward the room, pressed at the edge of the doorway with his back against the wall. He leaned over enough to look in.

There she was, that older woman again. She was standing beside a hospital bed in the center of the room, talking quietly to someone in the bed, holding the man’s large, thin hand. 

_I know you…_ a voice whispered in his head. John’s eyes grew wider as he took in her eyes, her face. His breathing picked up again, and whether it was the sound or just her sensing his presence there, looking at her, she glanced up at the doorway and saw him there.

She froze, drawing in a gasp. Her free hand went to her chest. “John?” It came out soft and shocked and full of breath.

He turned around, coming in the doorway, the machine gun aimed at the center of her face. Her eyes grew wide and she suddenly looked stricken and even more afraid. 

“I know you.” He couldn’t tell whether he said it aloud or not. He was vaguely aware he was moving forward toward her. She began to tremble faintly, her eyes on the machine gun.

“What--? Of course you know me, John.”

He felt something seizing in him again, that pain. He shook his head. “No,” he said gruffly, though he wasn’t sure if it was to her or to something in himself. He was nearly to the side of the bed.

“John, it’s Emma Hudson,” she was saying. “ _Mrs._ Hudson. Don’t you remember…”

But he didn’t hear the rest of it, and his mind stopped trying to place her now. He’d glanced down at the figure on the bed and his gaze had frozen there.

His arms loosened on the gun, the muzzle tilting down. Bile rose in his throat. Tears welled in him as all those half-remembered moments burst in. 

The man’s face was gaunt and terribly pale, his eyes closed, a ragged splash of stubble beneath the oxygen mask. The woman still held one of his alabaster hands.

John took in a sudden breath, closed his eyes, ignoring the pain as it rushed into him like a wave:

_This was the face of the man walking next to him, the owner of the voice he heard in his head. This was the man beside him in the cabs, the face that leaned away from the microscope, the smile behind the steepled fingers. This was the face over him in the night. This body was the weight moving gently on top of him, inside him, against the pleasure between his legs. This was the mouth on his face and his belly and his lips. This was his life and his home and his heart._

“Sherlock.” He breathed the name from somewhere deep inside him. He said again.

“Yes,” the woman ( _Mrs. Hudson_ ) said softly, and he glanced from her face back to Sherlock’s. “It’s Sherlock, John. He’s with us still.”

John could only shake his head, tears filling his eyes now. “I—“

“John, you’re frightening me.” She said it quietly, slowly, carefully laying down Sherlock’s hand. “Would you mind putting the gun down, dear? Everything’s all right now. You’re safe here. Let me just get Mycroft—“

It was like getting stabbed with hot iron, that name. The gun came back up, freezing her in place where she’d taken a step toward him around the bed. 

“John, don’t—!“ she gasped. “Please, I—“

“Shut up!” He roared it at her, hands holding the machine gun on her beginning to shake. “Just get the fuck _out_ of here!” He jerked his chin toward the door. 

She hesitated, looking down at Sherlock, tears streaming down her face, her hand shaking as she reached toward him. “Don’t hurt him, John—“

“God damn you _GO!_ ” he shouted, nearly pressing the muzzle to her face, and she stepped to the side and moved quickly toward the door, running by the time she reached the door. He could hear her sobbing as she retreated down the corridor toward the stairs.

She was going to get Mycroft Holmes. She was going to bring Holmes down on him -- _on them,_ he amended – on Sherlock and on him _right then._ The thought sent his heart rate ratcheting even higher, his breathing to the point of a panic attack. He was so soaked with sweat now his shirt was sticking to him, the smell of the blood and the flecks of bone and brain sickening him. 

“Christ…” he said, swiping the headset off, sending it clattering. He set the machine gun down on the edge of the bed over the railing, yanked at the radio, dropped it next to the headset it was still attached to on the floor. Then he pulled the bloodied, ruined shirt over his head and threw it as far from the two of them as he could. 

The cold air hit his damp vest, the cotton sticking to him. He went around the bed to where Hudson had been standing, dropped the railing on that side. He looked at the monitors, the wires, the IV lines. He looked at the oxygen levels and the mask, the catheter trailing down.

“My God,” he said, anguished, drawing in a shaky breath. “God, Sherlock, what’s he done to you?” He stroked at Sherlock’s dark, swept-back hair. 

At the touch, all thoughts of killing Mycroft Holmes bled away. Suddenly, John realized, looking down into Sherlock’s unconscious face, there was now a _second_ thing he was certain of -- _Sherlock_ \-- and Sherlock was as sure and as real to him as the need to shoot Fritz and Conrad in the lift had been. 

Sherlock was in focus at the center of the spin of images in his brain, in the center of the pain. Sherlock was his new One Thing. 

As he realized this, he was filled with an overwhelming desire to flee, to scream. He closed his eyes, his face clenching into a sob as he fought the urge of it, that same pain searing up his arms. He shook his head, and though something was howling in his mind, he didn’t run or scream. 

Sherlock was all that mattered now, and Holmes was coming for them. He could stay to kill Holmes as he’d been ordered, or he could take Sherlock and the two of them could escape. 

The decision was suddenly clear, though the terror that rose in him nearly knocked him off his feet. He gulped in a breath, leaned down close to Sherlock’s face. 

“I have to get you out of here,” he murmured, his voice shaking, touching the other man’s forehead with his dry lips. “I have to save you from all this.”

Reaching up, he closed off the first of the IV lines and quickly went to work.

 

**

The first firefight broke out about five minutes after the house alarm went off, right about the time when Mick and the rest of the Spec Ops team had made it down the entire first hallway – an eerily plain white marble and echoing sort of space – without making enough noise for the people in the rooms to hear. They’d heard the televisions, the sounds of men laughing, the radios coming faintly from behind the thick wood of the doors, but no one had heard them, and Mick was beginning to believe they could make it into the stairwell and up to the third floor without having to turn the place into a morgue.

Then the red lights hidden in the walls had begun to flash, the high notes of the alarm screaming from the speakers up there, and Mick Wheatley – standing at the front of the line of men moving silent against the wall – knew right then and there that, as the kids on the Internet would say, shit had just gotten real.

“Hustle!” he called, gesturing toward the door he knew led to the stairs.

“For fuck’s sake,” Newell groaned over the sound of the alarm, and then a door opened just behind them and someone was shouting in Arabic. Then the gunfire started and Mick and the rest of the team rose up nearly in unison from their crouch and took off towards the stairs.

They streamed through the doorway and up the first of the stairs, Mick flattening against the wall and giving Littleton the point position while he covered from the back. Larimer was last in and slammed the door, jamming the slide lock at its top in place as someone hit the door.

“Report,” Mick barked, and Larimer turned, showing a spatter of blood on his face. 

“Two down, took a graze on the neck.” Larimer gave Mick a wink. “Just a scratch.”

Mick gave him a terse smile. “Purple Heart for you then, Princess. Move out.” 

Up the stairs, the door to the second-floor corridor locked tight. They could hear men running in the hallway beyond. 

“At the door to three!” Newell called down, his voice echoing, and Mick took the stairs two at a time to get to the front of the group again. Once he was leaned against it, he held up a hand, everyone going silent. He made a fist, opened the door, and they moved.

One door at the end of the hallway, a man who must have been a servant by his dress and the tray beside him. He was lying in front of the door in a ragged pool of blood. 

“Execution shot,” Littleton said from beside him. “Back of the head.”

All of them were in a tight bunch, machine guns at eye level, aiming at both ends of the corridor. The whole place was strangely still, the only movement the intermittent crimson glow thrown by alarm. 

“Go,” Mick said softly, on edge. They moved to the door.

Mick leaned his ear in, listening. From the acoustics, the faintness of the sound, it was a large room and two people – a woman and a man – were talking within.

He looked at his men again, gestured toward the door and nodded to Newell. Newell bobbed his head _yes_ and proceeded to kick in the door. Mick and Littleton were the first ones in.

“About time you got here,” Irene Adler said from the center of the room where she stood, holding a gun on a man Mick recognized immediately as James Moriarty. Their Primary Target was standing still as a statue with his hands at his sides, and he spared the Spec Ops team only a glance, then returned his attention to Adler and her gun.

Mick moved to the side so that he could see both Moriarty and Adler’s expressions. This also put him just a few feet away from Adler’s girlfriend Lily and another woman who were holding a second man. They were _literally_ holding him, one of them behind him with a knife to his throat while the other held him tense as a bow by what looked to be a _crushing_ grip on the man’s nuts. The man was looking at Mick with a desperate man-to-man _help me_ look.

“What the hell’s going on in here?” Mick asked the room, not lowering his gun from where he’d aimed it at Moriarty’s chest.

“I was just asking Mr. Moriarty where I could find my friend Greg Lestrade,” Adler replied. “He’s considering whether to tell me or not, and I’m hoping so much he makes the correct choice.” Her eyes didn’t leave Moriarty’s, nor his hers.

Mick looked from Adler to Moriarty, trying to get a read on Moriarty’s expression. He seemed amused, unafraid. 

“Here’s what I’m hoping,” Moriarty replied softly. “Would you like to hear?”

“Oh definitely,” Adler replied sweetly. “I am _all ears._ ”

Moriarty smiled a stony little smile. “I am hoping you all begin to understand the terribly mistake you’re all making,” he began. “I am hoping that you all take this _one chance_ I’m giving you to lower your weapons and leave this room and this house so that the world you know doesn’t come _burning_ down the way it will if you don’t.” His eyes glinted as he glared at Irene Adler. “And I’m hoping to one day get to have that pretty, tarted-up face of yours in my hands, Ms. Adler, while someone slits what’s left of your body open like a fish.” 

Mick hadn’t known Irene long, that much was true, but anyone with a brain would know what the look that came over her face meant. She was angry, yes, but there was something gleeful that flashed, as well. He didn’t have time to blink before the pistol in her hand dipped, the gun going off with a silenced _pop_ as she lodged a bullet dead center into Moriarty’s right knee.

He went down on the other knee, his teeth clenched against the scream as he held the injured knee, blood seeping between his fingers.

“Wrong answer,” Irene Adler said lightly. “Shall we try again? Where is Greg Lestrade? These kind fellows will go fetch him and bring him here to me and then I’ll _think_ about letting you leave with them.”

“I don’t take orders from anyone,” Moriarty growled, breathing hard. “And certainly not from a psychopathic whore like you.”

A second shot, the other kneecap gone. This time as Moriarty crashed down on both ruined knees, he did scream. 

“Wrong again,” Adler replied, shaking her head. “And I appear to be out of knees.” 

Mick winced, the sound of shattered bone grinding as Moriarty leaned forward on the rug, going down onto all fours.

“Basement level,” Moriarty gasped. “Room with the red wooden door.” He choked on a cry as he shifted to look at her. “I will ruin _all of you_ for this!”

Mick looked at Newell, raised an eyebrow. “Take five and go,” he said. “Tell anyone who faces off that Moriarty’s out. They shoot anyway, put ‘em down.”

“You got it,” Newell said, and he barked five names, the six of them heading out.

Adler hadn’t moved at all. She looked like a beautiful statue standing there in her white trench, both hands training the silver Glock rock steady on Moriarty’s face.

The man Lily and the other woman held gave a little whimper of sound.

“Get a good look at James Moriarty, Commander,” Irene said in an oddly flat voice. Mick looked from her face to Moriarty’s, the man clearly in agony, but a defiant expression in his pale face. “This is the man who ordered that virus to be made. This is the man who sat by and used people we love like toys in his ridiculous games.”

Mick looked at Moriarty again now, thinking of Iarla. Thinking of Iarla in bed with him in those early days and then Iarla in the hospital dying, every bone in Iarla’s body sinking the virus’ agony into him. Mick had watched for weeks as his lover had tried to keep the pain from showing on his face.

He didn’t like the feeling that came over him. He let it come just the same.

It wasn’t the killing that was the issue – the orders were to _eliminate the target_ like it always was these days. No, it was the fact that Mick _wanted_ to do it, looked forward to doing it. He wanted to get down on his knees in front of Moriarty and choke the fucking life out of him. 

Adler’s teeth were clenched now, her eyes like bottomless pools. Mick had seen that look too many times. And seeing it, Mick Wheatley knew that as much as he wanted to kill this fucking spider, Adler had some reason to need to do it more.

“All yours,” Wheatley said, lowering the muzzle of the machine gun and stepping back.

Moriarty looked Wheatley in shock, back at Irene. “You can’t!”

Irene smiled. “Yeah? I know you like to watch things, Mr. Moriarty. So watch this.”

Three shots. Balls first, the high-pitched wailing tearing around the room. Left eye (with the sickening _snap_ the socket made as it cracked). Enough of a pause for Moriarty to keep screaming high and wet and long, and then she shot a hole in the center of his forehead the size of a dime.

*

It was like rising up through a red cloud, Greg Lestrade thought, feeling himself being shifted, covered with something warm, wrapped. Something was touching his face in one of the two small areas that didn’t feel like a hammer had been taken to them. He didn’t want to wake up again. He didn’t want to feel the crush of—

“Lestrade, open your eyes for me, love.”

_Love? Irene Adler was calling him “love”?_

That got him to open his swollen eyes to tiny slits. She was still, leaning over him, and a group of men were shifting around his body, tucking his bundled body into some sort light metal frame. Irene smiled down at him.

“That got you back, didn’t it?” she said, that dismissive teasing in her voice. It didn’t touch her eyes though. He could tell she was worried about him. 

“All right…” he breathed. It made him cough to say it, broken ribs straining. _Ah Christ…_

“Yes, you’re perfect,” she sniffed. “We’re with a Spec Ops team, waiting for dust off.”

The words drifted around him, into his brain, taking awhile to register there. He could feel himself floating away.

“Moriarty…?” he breathed.

“Dead.” She had a hand on the side of his head, smoothing his close-cut hair down.

“John.” He forced his eyes open a bit to see the expression on her face, steeling himself.

She shook her head. “Left several days ago with two of Moriarty’s men. No one can tell us where.” 

_Fuck_ … Lestrade closed his eyes again. 

“It’s all right,” Irene said softly. “Now that Moriarty’s gone, Mycroft will be able to find him.” 

He nodded once, the movement flaring the pain in his head. She stroked his hair again, and he felt her warm breath on his face, her lips touching above the cut on one brow. “Just rest,” she murmured against him. “You brave and utterly _stupid_ man…”

He smiled faintly. It felt good, the tight cinch of the blankets around him in the stretcher’s frame, her hands on him. It felt good knowing that one part of this was over, even if another part was just about to begin.

 

**

By the time the alarm sounded, John had taken every IV, catheter, and monitor line off or out of Sherlock’s body, and John was very grateful for that. The last of his reserve and control vanished with the startle of the sound, and his hands began to shake uncontrollably. He knew they would shake from here on out.

Sherlock had roused a bit when John had removed the catheter, and his head was moving from side to side again now that John was trying to pull a pair of worn pajama bottoms he’d found in a drawer of the wardrobe up Sherlock’s rail-thin legs. 

“It’s all right,” John murmured to him, just loud enough to be heard over the buzzing alarm coming in from the corridor. “Sherlock, it’s all right.”

The pajamas pulled up to Sherlock’s bare waist, John now reached for the oxygen mask and carefully slid it off the other man’s stubbled face. Sherlock’s eyes opened then, lolling, and focused on the face above him. John knew when he’d managed it because his eyes widened and he drew in a ragged breath.

“John?” Sherlock whispered, just a puff of air.

John nodded, tears threatening again. “I’m here,” he replied, rubbing a trembling thumb over Sherlock’s cheekbone. 

Sherlock’s brow squinted down at the sound outside. “What--?” 

“I’ve got to get you out of here,” John said. “Can you walk?” 

Sherlock shook his head and John nodded. He would carry him then.

“Come here,” he murmured, curled his arms around Sherlock’s chest and pulled him into a sitting position. Sherlock managed to get an arm around John’s shoulders, fingers grazing against the back of his neck.

“Wait,” Sherlock whispered. He was shaking his head.

“It’s all right,” John soothed. “I’ve got you. We’ve got to hurry now, just hold onto me as best you can...”

He got Sherlock to the edge of the bed, long legs dangling down now, then he pulled Sherlock forward until Sherlock’s feet touched the floor. Sherlock tried to hold up his weight, but John found himself essentially supporting Sherlock’s entire weight against him. 

“S..sorry,” Sherlock breathed. “Go. Go…without me.”

Footsteps in the hallway coming closer, the door to the stairwell banging open. 

_Too late,_ John realized, panic and sadness and resignation sinking in. It was too late.

“Okay,” he said, looking around frantically. He reached over to the bedside table and switched off the light, settling the room into faintest gray morning light. With any luck, if he could get the two of them out of sight in the corner of the room, they might think he’d taken Sherlock and gone. It might send the people coming searching the rest of the hospital and he could—he could—

_Holmes she’s getting Mycroft Holmes…_

Yes, he could still kill Holmes. Sherlock – whoever he was to John – would be safer with Holmes gone. Holmes did this to him. Holmes must have tortured him as well.

John held Sherlock against him and half-dragged, half-carried him to the corner furthest from the door, gently lowering Sherlock to the floor. Then he crouched as he moved forward to drag one of the blankets from the bed, returning to the corner where he joined Sherlock on the floor.

More footsteps, some shouting, including someone barking for everyone to _stay back_ and to _not go in._ He could hear people gathering outside the door. Lots of them.

“Okay, okay, ” John said, trying to calm down, trying not to panic, but it was a near thing. He was breathing like he’d run a marathon, his entire body quaking now. Fumbling, he gathered the blanket around Sherlock, bundled him as best he could, then pulled Sherlock across his lap, pressing the other man’s head against his chest to steady him there. Sherlock’s breathing puffed shallowly in and out.

With his other hand, he reached behind him and pulled the Glock out, the machine gun still on the bed where he’d left it. He held the gun out over Sherlock’s body, aiming at the door. 

“Come on then,” he said between clenched teeth. “Come on.” And when the first figure appeared (police, black uniform), he fired, hitting the man in the arm and putting a splintered hole in the wall beyond.

“For fuck’s _sake_!” the man shouted, spinning around and holding his arm as he threw himself back out the door. Someone grabbed him and John fired again, closer to the doorframe now in warning.

“Do _not_ fucking come in here!” he shouted. “Do you hear me? Do _NOT_!”

“John,” Sherlock murmured against him. “John, put…put the gun down.”

“Be quiet,” John whispered, pressing his face close Sherlock’s ear as he said it. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

“John…listen to me.” Sherlock’s eyes opened, his gaze strong and steady on John’s, a hand coming up to touch John’s face. “What you’ve been told…it’s a lie. Moriarty has lied to you.”

“Sherlock, shh.” He was trying not to get angry, eyes on the door. But it was all beginning to crawl up the back up his neck, up his throat. He had a scream in him that if he let rise would never stop and he was losing his fight to hold it back. 

Sherlock was shaking his head. “John, you don’t know what—“

“Shhhh!” he hissed, then turned his attention to the door again, readjusting the Glock in his sweaty grip. 

_you always do the right thing John_

John could feel them all out there, pressing in against them now. He could hear the hurried, soft conversation, the plans hatching. He could hear them readying to come in.

“Mycroft Holmes!” he shouted in reply. “If Mycroft Holmes is out there, I want him in here. _Now!_ ”

“John…” Sherlock tried again, shaking his head. “Don’t—“

“ _Quiet!_ ” he snapped in a whisper, because someone was indeed coming in.

And there he was, the man from his nightmares, the demon that haunted him, the man who had caused him all this pain. Mycroft Holmes in a black suit and white shirt with his hands out in front of him, palms toward John. A woman was with him who looked…familiar? Dark hair, lab coat. Somehow he knew her, as well.

“We are unarmed,” Holmes said, his voice deadly calm. “We mean you no harm, John, nor does anyone here.”

John watched the two of them coming slowly around the bed, his gun trained, hand shaking. He cocked the hammer back, clenching his teeth harder as he took in Holmes’ pale, stricken face. The woman walking beside him had a look of otherworldly calm on her face, a hand toward him.

“John, it’s Jacqui Stapleton. From Baskerville. Do you remember me?”

_Baskerville I don’t have friends are you sure you’re all right you look a little piqued…_

“No,” he lied, and pointed the gun at her face. She seemed unperturbed by this. 

“John, I’m Sherlock’s doctor and he can’t be off his IVs or oxygen like this.” She kept edging closer, moving all the way to the left of them near the window. “Can’t you hear he’s having trouble breathing?” Moving slowly, she knelt down a few feet away. John’s eyes darted between her and Mycroft Holmes, who’d stopped at the foot of the bed. He aimed the gun at Holmes’ head. 

“Can you hear him?” she said again. Her voice was gentle but full of urgent concern.

John tried to quiet his own breathing enough to listen and yes, he could hear it now. A high-pitched wheeze, Sherlock’s cage of ribs rising and falling too fast as he struggled for breath.

_Christ…oh Christ…_

“I have to save him,” John said desperately, chancing a look at her face. “Look what he’s done to him. Look what he’s done—“ A sob tore at his chest.

“No, John,” Mycroft said sadly. “No. I would never hurt him. _Never._ Do you understand? James Moriarty has drugged you, tortured you. He’s brainwashed you into thinking I am your enemy. He wants you to kill me, I think, and Sherlock as well. He’s tried to make you forget who you are, who we are to you. But it was all a _lie._ ”

“You _shut it_!” John shouted at him, his face contorting in rage. “That man has taken care of me when _no one_ else would. He—“

“Listen to me,” Mycroft cut in, his voice rising. “He gave Sherlock a virus that has caused this disease. He blackmailed you with Sherlock’s life into coming to him. Do you remember? Try to remember…”

_then come and get me you sonofabitch_

“Stop it,” John said, shaking it away. It was causing him pain. “Stop talking—“

“John, listen to me…” Sherlock murmured against him, chest heaving with the effort to breathe.

_do the right thing_

“I am going to _kill you_!” he roared at Mycroft Holmes, who blanched even further at the sudden sound in the quiet room. John’s hand shook harder as he raised the gun a bit higher, the muzzle struggling to stay on target in his hand.

“John don’t—“ Stapleton said, soft and urgent.

“I kill you and all of this stops, yeah? It stops _now!_ ”

“John…” Sherlock said softly, his hand moving gently on John’s back. “John, look at me.”

Panting, John looked down. There were tears in Sherlock’s eyes, rimming them deep red in his pale face. It was a pitiful sight and it slammed into him.

“You know me,” Sherlock whispered, holding his gaze.

John nodded, the tears finally coming. “Yes. I know you.”

Sherlock nodded. “You trust me.” A little puff of sound on his labored breath.

John nodded again. “I do.” His voice was a ruin now.

“Then trust me now…Mycroft…he’s my brother and I am asking you, for me…don’t hurt him.”

_the name’s Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street_

John felt it cracking. Something giving way. He looked at Mycroft, tried to retrain the gun, but he was shaking so badly he nearly dropped it instead. Mycroft gave him a sad, half-smile. “No one’s going to hurt you here,” he said, and he gestured toward the door with one hand.

John looked down at Sherlock again, adjusting his hold, pulling him closer, searching his face. 

“Please…don’t hurt him,” Sherlock murmured again, and behind that he could hear the sound of footsteps coming in.

“Hey Doc,” a voice said softly, from near the bed. He knew that voice. He knew—

And they were there. The men from the helo. The _real_ men from the helo. Camo and Kevlar and weapons there but slung. No helmets, but the rest of their appearance was just as they’d been. Five of them. 

_Chris. Quince. Kip. Lopez. Bear._

It was Chris who had spoken, all dark hair and long beard, just as he had been. They were all coming around the bed in a crouch, coming down on their knees like Stapleton had done. Chris was closest, and John stared into his calm, kind face.

“You know us, John,” Chris nodded as a sob tore into John’s chest. “Come on, Doc. Drop that Glock.”

_do the right thing_

“Oh God,” John cried against Sherlock temple, shaking his head. “Help me, please, I can’t—“

“It’s all right…” Sherlock soothed, arm coming up to touch John’s face. “Let go…”

“Come on, Doc,” Bear said, holding out his mitt of a hand and sliding closer. “You know we wouldn’t hurt you, bud. Hand the pistol right here.”

Quince was edging in behind Chris, all of them moving slowly in. John held Sherlock tightly against him, listening—

_Come on, Army, we got you_

_Hand him to me, John, hand him here_

_Come on John come here to us now…_

The Glock tumbled to the floor. John shook and shook.

Stapleton was close now, Chris was close now. There were hands on Sherlock, drawing him away. Sherlock was saying something to him as they pulled him from John’s embrace slowly, Sherlock limp as a doll, lips faintly blue, his hand trailing down his chest as Chris got his arms around Sherlock, turning away to hand him off, people around Sherlock now, Stapleton with him, Mycroft Holmes crouching down next to Sherlock, Mycroft’s hands tender on his brother’s face.

 _he’s my brother don’t hurt him_

Mycroft’s face in that room became Moriarty’s face. It was Moriarty over him as the pain rushed in, and he knew now it had always been. Moriarty who had loved him like a son, who had taken care of him. It was Moriarty who had nearly taken everything he was and had and loved away from him.

That’s when John felt something in him tear away. He slumped forward, clawing at his face with his hands—

 _come on army we got you we got you now come here_ \--

\--and, with a broken and anguished sound, he crawled forward into Chris and Quince and Bear’s waiting arms, curling tight under them and into himself until everything – even the morning light – disappeared.

 

**

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


	18. Chapter 18

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**

 

It was the first morning that the glass of the window of Sherlock’s hospital room was truly cold, a faint halo of frost around the pane. His bare feet were cold on the floor, but his legs were finally warm in the new flannel pajamas Mrs. Hudson had brought him the day before. The doctors believed his immune system was finally strong enough for him to wear something other than hospital gowns again, and the move had coincided nicely with the first cold snap of the year. He wore an thick gray jumper he’d had for some time that swallowed him now, a long-sleeve white shirt underneath.

At least his head – bald for weeks now – was always warm. He wore a black stocking cap day and night. A faint shadow of dark stubble was beginning to grow back, both on his head and on his face.

Sherlock noted the subtle shift in light out the window as autumn pushed toward winter. Mid-November now. Seven weeks since that morning when he found John and lost him again.

It all felt surreal to think about it, Sherlock realized, to remember waking to John over him in the hospital bed, the paste-like pallor on John’s face, the sheen of terrified sweat. Then the tension of John’s body beneath him where they hid on the floor, the faint _clicking_ of the pistol as it rattled in his shaking hand. The sudden realization: _He doesn’t know who he is._

Then the way the room lolled as he was moved off John’s lap, arms shifting him, pulling him in. And then that _sound_ that came out of John’s throat, the agony of it as the SEALs closed over John’s curled body to restrain him as the SEAL medic sedated him with a syringe.

Sherlock hadn’t seen him again after that. The SEAL team had returned with him to Germany immediately, the group of men called in by Mycroft to both take John down with as little harm to him as possible and to act as a sort of bridge between the life he’d been leading with Moriarty and his life before it.

And while Sherlock understood the reasoning for John being whisked away so quickly – that the most important thing for him was immediate treatment at the psychiatric unit at Landstahl that was specially trained to deal with victims of torture – it pained him nonetheless.

In the end, as Mycroft was quick to point out, John’s absence was for the best: Sherlock had had his own battle to begin.

Stapleton’s antidote and a cocktail of antivirals had wiped the virus from his system, but it could nothing to replace the damaged marrow. The only choice was a marrow transplant from his brother (identified as a match weeks before, Stapleton said).

“I know it will pain you to know I will be your donor,” Mycroft said primly from beside Sherlock’s bed, but he was rocking a bit in his stuffy leather shoes, clearly quite pleased with himself. He was beginning to look rested for the first time in months.

“Yes, I am agonized,” Sherlock replied, playing his part, but when Mycroft glanced down at him, Sherlock gave him a ghost of a smile.

Chemo, radiation to destroy the rest of the marrow, take his immune system down. They said he might keep his hair, hold some weight. He didn’t. Then the transfusion of marrow and the long, long wait.

Visitors had been required to wear gowns and gloves and masks, their shoes encased in little blue sacks. They came and went: Mrs. Hudson, Molly, Mycroft. He asked Mycroft about John each time he came, but there was never news beyond _he’s making progress, I’m told_ , which Sherlock took to mean he wasn’t making any at all.

He woke to light or darkness, time slowing and losing its grip. He was constantly cold since he’d lost all the weight.

Sometimes Irene was there, though he often missed her because she refused to wake him if he was asleep. She’d moved back into her rented house in Belgravia since her return from Tunis, the woman Lily she’d met there with her now.

When she was with him, the two of them spoke little as if by some mutual understanding, watching the television or reading together as she held his freezing hand.

Only once when he awoke to find her there over him, a gentle smile on her face, did Sherlock ask about John by whispering his name.

“He’ll be all right,” she’d replied, something quiet and calm in her eyes and final in her voice. Then she touched his lips with the tips of her finger to quiet him again.

Lestrade came by just the once, hoarse and moving slowly but with a tired smile. He’d had surgery to set his nose, a break in the bones of his face, and he would be off for several weeks to heal.

“Let me know if…you know, if there’s anything I can do,” Lestrade had said.

Sherlock huffed a breath of a laugh. “I think you’ve done enough,” he replied softly and, to Lestrade’s obvious surprise, reached out and shook his hand.

Mostly what Sherlock had done was drift from room to room in his Palace. For weeks he listened to the sound of his heels tapping down as he walked the long corridors, hands sunk deep in the pockets of his black trousers, as he went from room to room. The high windows were constantly dotted with snow. The door to his father’s study remained closed.

Another door had opened though, the one to the garden behind the house, a trail leading off through the gate toward the snow-covered forests at the foot of a bank of mountains. He was drawn to the path, the forest beyond, but he did not go out. He knew if he did, he would not come back again.

“Hey.”

The soft sound startled him from the Palace, and he realized there was a hand in his, fingers gently twining. Irene was standing beside him, he realized, and he looked down into her face.

“You need to get out of here soon,” she said, concern in her eyes. “You’re going too far away.”

He drew in a breath and let it out, returning his gaze to the window. “It keeps me occupied,” he replied.

“I know.” She leaned against him gently. “I know the quiet’s been the hardest part.”

He made a noncommittal noise, still looking out. She gave his hand a squeeze.

“I’ve brought you some crackers and tea,” she said, and now he could smell the tea, the dark smell of bergamot floating in the air. It was on the table between the two armchairs that had been arranged around the television, a packet of the seeded crackers his tetchy stomach favored between the two lidded cups. He hadn’t noticed any of it until then.

“Thank you,” he said, and they went to the chairs and sat. He reached for his cup and leaned back, crossing his legs. She mirrored his pose, looking at him over the brim of her cup.

“You want me to tell you about what happened in Tunis,” she stated, clearly reading it in his gaze. “You’re ready to hear that now.”

He took a sip. “Yes.” His eyes settled on the tattoo on her hand that held the cup.

“All right then,” she said, sighing and setting down the cup. Then she began.

He listened for a long time in silence as the story unfurled – the trip to Tunis with Lestrade, the slow work of contacts and working their ways in, the Royal Marines and the club and John coming in. He knew some of it already but he let her speak.

“…so I took him into the room I had in the back and talked to him,” she was saying when he stopped her at last.

“What was he like?” he asked. He tried to make his tone curious, but he failed.

She raised a brow. “Looked quite fit in his uniform,” she said, trying to deflect the seriousness of his question with a quirk of her lip.

He gave a small smile. “You’re concerned it will upset me.”

Her expression fell, her eyes meeting his. “A bit.”

He sighed. “I know you didn’t have sex with him. If you had, you would have visited less frequently, avoiding my company out of irrational and unfounded feelings of guilt.”

“No, I didn’t have sex with him,” she replied, nodding at his deduction. “But Lily did.”

He knew it was coming, but it still jolted something in him. He covered it with a nod, biting his lip.

“He had no idea who he was. He needed that sort of….closeness, always has when he’s—“ He stopped, looked down to collect himself, then back at her face again. “I’m glad it was someone you care for…someone who would be good to him.”

“I do,” she replied softly, nodding, taking a sip of her tea. “She was.”

“And I’m glad it wasn’t you,” he finished quietly. His eyes didn’t leave hers. He didn’t smile.

Color rose a bit on her cheeks at the frank disclosure. She cleared her throat, continued.

“Anything else I could tell you about how he was…well, you saw the result. He was starting to show signs of breaking. He was doubting what he’d been told even then.”

Sherlock drank his tea, nodded. “What do you know about how he’s been?”

“Only a bit more than you, I think,” Irene replied, her voice softening. “I know he was in a bad way for awhile in Germany, that it took him awhile to come around.”

He nodded. “Go on.”

“I know he’s been moved now to a private facility in Cornwall, that it was a good sign he could be moved off the base. I know Molly’s been to see him since. Emma Hudson has, as well, though I haven’t spoken to either of them about it. Greg was going to wait until his face healed a bit.”

“’Greg,’?” Sherlock asked himself, arching an eyebrow.

“Lestrade,” Irene added, “Honestly, Sherlock, how long before you learn the man’s name?”

“I know his name,” Sherlock said, looking at her knowingly. “I just didn’t know you did, as well.”

Irene smiled, something shy in her expression as she looked down. “He’s been a friend,” she said quietly. “Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

His smile warmed. “Not a thing.”

*

He rested for a while after that, lying beneath the blankets to stay warm and listening to a Bach cello suite as the sunlight shifted toward mid-afternoon. Then he reached for his phone and texted his brother.

_Time for a talk, I should think.  
\--SH_

A long pause, then:

_Agreed. I’ll be by after tea.  
\--MH_

He dozed, woke when they brought his dinner (soup, a protein drink). It was a clear night with hints of starlight when Mycroft opened the door and came in.

“You didn’t finish your dinner,” he said without preamble. He had his umbrella and was using it as a cane a touch more than usual, the surgery sites on the back of his hips still giving him pain. He hid a wince as he sat on the edge of the soft chair beside the bed.

“Smell it,” Sherlock said tiredly. “Would you have finished it?”

“I can have something else brought in if you’d prefer. If you could manage pasta, I’m sure—“

“Nothing,” Sherlock cut in, then sighed. “Though…thank you for the offer. Perhaps tomorrow.”

Mycroft angled his head. “So,” he said, hands on the curve of the umbrellas head. “John. I assume Ms. Adler has told you he is back in England.”

“Cornwall, yes.”

Mycroft gave a nod. “He is very comfortable, very well cared for. He’s no longer considered a danger to himself or others, I’m relieved to say.”

Sherlock nodded, watching his brother’s face and seeing all that was hidden there. “...And?”

“I haven’t seen him, of course,” Mycroft said, trying to remain casual about the whole thing, though he was looking at his hands now as he spoke. “I’m told his symptoms are very typical for severe cases of post-traumatic stress disorder. He’s experiencing anxiety and sleep disturbances, the sorts of things he’s suffered before, though more…pronounced, of course.”

Sherlock stayed still. “Go on.”

Mycroft sighed heavily, returning his gaze to his brother’s face. “Sherlock, what Moriarty did, turning John into an assassin in that way…it would require a great deal. He underwent chemical and psychological torture and it’s had a profound effect. Is it helpful to you to hear that in the state you’re in?”

“I need to be told,” Sherlock murmured, but ire was rising.

Mycroft shook his head. “Sherlock, honestly, what else would you have me say?”

“That I can see him,” he shot back, hoarse.

“You cannot leave yet,” Mycroft said slowly, his voice lowering as his gaze turned hard. “We both know you are still quite ill.”

“I need to see him,” he replied, and even saying it made something rise in his chest, _sentiment_ nearly choking him. He cleared his throat, his voice tight. “I need to get out of this place.”

Mycroft’s eyes narrowed. He’d heard the catch in his voice.

With that, he leaned back in his chair painfully, letting out another breath. He did not cross his legs. “I will send an inquiry to the doctors treating John about your seeing him.”

“Half the world’s been to see him,” Sherlock said sourly, looking away.

“You are different,” Mycroft replied softly. “And _when_ you see him will be, I’m told, up to him.”

Sherlock was stopped by that, the weight of all that had happened sinking in him. It had never occurred to him that John might have problems with him.

“As for you leaving hospital,” Mycroft went on, “the house in Sussex is available, though I would like you to have a small staff with you there for a time.”

“How many and for how long?” Sherlock cut in.

“Two,” Mycroft answered softly, unperturbed. “A butler and a home physician. How long will, of course, depend on your recovery.”

Sherlock began to protest, but was silenced as the elder Holmes leveled his eyes at him and said softly: “We’ve been through much, dear brother. Too much, I dare say. Those are my terms for you leaving this place.”

Sherlock hesitated, blew out of a breath. “Agreed,” he finally said.

 

**

Five days spent moving Sherlock from the hospital in London to the smallest of the family houses in Sussex, getting Sherlock settled into one of the four bedrooms upstairs as the butler, an older Welshman named Thomas, moved into the servant’s quarters just off the kitchen.

Two days of Sherlock convalescing after coming down with the first hints of a cold after the move, a potentially dangerous thing. His doctor – Dr. Newell – checked him twice a day and was always on call. Newell lived in a rather nice gatekeeper’s house about a mile away on the property with his wife and young child, and he was skilled and conscientious and just absent enough that Sherlock could tolerate him.

Then three days of Sherlock moving around the house in pajamas, going from bed to chair in the living room before the fire to the wide window overlooking the dark lake. Thomas moved silently to him when he needed him, kind but absent enough to give Sherlock time to think. Sherlock took a liking to him.

In all that, no word from Mycroft, which meant no word from John. Sherlock tried not to think of what that could mean as he stood at the window, tea gone cold in a white china cup.

It snowed on the tenth day, the one when the text from Mycroft finally came.

_A car will gather you at 9:00 a.m.  
\--MH_

Thomas rode with him in the car the next morning, tucking a blanket in around his legs and making Sherlock feel like an invalid. Then the two of them boarded a train, Thomas sitting near the door to the private compartment while Sherlock sat still and silent at the window, huddled in his coat and scarf. A fuzz of hair on his head now, he had switched to a black wool newsboy cap.

The train took them across the snowy landscape, the sky a groggy gray, all the way to a town called Callington where another car was waiting for them.

Sherlock had been numb on the train ride, wandering the halls in his mind and trying to maintain what he knew to be realistic expectations for what the day could bring. But once in the car on the way to the residential hospital where John had been taken, Sherlock’s nerves over the long wait for John’s reply had started to gnaw at him.

 _It’s John_ , he told himself. _Just John._ And he knew John better than anyone in the world, didn’t he? It would all be fine.

The sign to the hospital was on a wrought-iron gate that guarded a long, winding entrance road through a forest of old trees. At the end of the driveway, a sprawling stone mansion, the sheer drapes on the windows giving the place a sleepy, domestic air. Several large outbuildings – also stone, but clearly more recently built than the old house – were tucked in the edge of the snow-covered woods.

Sherlock’s car came around the circular drive and stopped at the huge double doors of the great house, and the driver got out and opened the door. Thomas was there from the passenger seat to offer Sherlock his arm.

“All right there, Mr. Holmes?” he asked softly as Sherlock leaned on him.

“Fine, yes,” he replied softly, standing outside the car and having a look around. A man was coming down the front steps looking cold in his dark suit and polite smile. He met Sherlock at the foot of the steps.

“Mr. Holmes, I’m Dr. Gilpin,” he said, reaching out a hand. Sherlock shook it to avoid being rude. “I’ve been overseeing Dr. Watson’s treatment. Come inside to the Drawing Room and we’ll have a chat, if you don’t mind.”

Sherlock _did_ mind, but he didn’t say it for once. He simply followed Gilpin in, through wide entrance hall to the large room, fireplace crackling away, on the left. Sherlock took the end of the sofa and Gilpin the chair across. Thomas waited by the door, his hands folded in front of him.

Sherlock leveled his gaze at Gilpin, eyes flicking over him, taking inventory of the man. Dark hair in a close cut, clean-shaven, eyes that held some intelligence. Mid-50s. _Two children, grown. Wife dead._ Then he said: “You’re worried I’m going to say something to upset him. You’re concerned my expectations of how he’ll respond to me are too high, that I will be disappointed when I see him, which you believe he will misinterpret as my being disappointed by him.”

Gilpin balked, a chuckle startled out of him. “Well…yes,” he said. “I gather since you are aware of all those things that this will not be the case.”

Sherlock gave him a false, terse smile. “I believe I know John a bit better than you do,” he said softly.

Gilpin looked down, awkward for a beat. “I know the two of you were lovers.”

“ _Are_ , yes,” Sherlock corrected, eyes boring into him.

The other man pursed his lips, color rising on his face. “’Are,’ of course,” he adding hurriedly, nodding. “It would just perhaps be better if you begin as just his friend at this stage of things. The expectation of more than that will—“

“I understand,” Sherlock interrupted, his voice low. “I’d like to see him.”

If Gilpin was surprised by how forward Sherlock was, he didn’t show it. Much. He rubbed his hands on his trouser legs and stood. “Of course,” he replied, forcing a smile as he gestured to the foyer. “This way then.”

 

*

Gilpin led him to the second floor, to a closed door on the right with the number “4” on it. Sherlock was coming out of his coat and scarf as they approached it. He could hear the sound of a television on the other side.

“These are his quarters,” Gilpin said softly, and knocked gently.

 _Bedroom, sitting room, bath,_ Sherlock deduced. _Transitional space from an inpatient hospital to a domestic setting…_

His thoughts were interrupted as he heard John’s voice, telling them to come in.

When they entered, John was standing in the middle of the small sitting room between the couch and two chairs. Sherlock and Gilpin stopped a few feet inside the door.

“John,” Dr. Gilpin said kindly. “Your visitor’s here.”

John was in jeans, a black, pocketed button-up shirt, his lace-up boots. He’d grown a full beard that was more gray than anything else, his hair grown out ragged from the crew-cut but smoothed down. He looked thin, frail, and his eyes were wide and bloodshot and wreathed with dark. They were also completely focused on Sherlock’s face.

“I’ll just…leave you two alone then,” Dr. Gilpin said into the long beat of quiet between them that followed, Sherlock and John still standing five or six feet apart. “I’ll be in the office across the hall should either of you need anything.”

Sherlock ignored him. John ignored him. Sherlock heard the door click shut softly behind him and knew they were alone.

“Hello, John,” Sherlock said softly, allowing a small smile as he hung his coat and scarf on the pegs by the door. John drew in a breath at the sound of his voice, his hands unconsciously clenching and unclenching in his usual nervous tick. The television was indeed on, _Antiques Road Show_ nattering softly to itself.

“Sherlock,” John replied. He returned the smile, but his eyes seemed suddenly more sad. “You look…” He gestured toward him. “You look…”

“Like I’ve had chemo?” Sherlock offered, a tease in his voice.

John huffed out a laugh, some of the tension cracking. “Yeah…yeah, you do a bit. Did you lose all your hair?”

Sherlock lifted the newsboy cap off, revealing the shadow of his newly grown hair.

“Wow,” John said, another nervous laugh coming. “Different. You look different.”

Sherlock smiled. “And you,” he replied, his voice warming. “Though I must say, unlike my bald pate, I genuinely _like_ your beard.” He replaced the cap on his head.

John reached up, smoothing his hair down a bit more. “I look like my Granddad, I think.”

Sherlock shrugged. “Shave it then,” he said lightly.

John rubbed at the back of his neck, his uncertain smile now looking more like a grimace. “Hard to come by a razor these days.” He gestured to a chair. “Sit?” Then he retreated to the other chair before Sherlock could get close to him.

Sherlock turned the chair so that it faced John a little more, then eased himself down into it. John noticed how slowly he managed it.

“How are you?” he asked, brow creasing down.

“Much better than the last time you saw me,” Sherlock evaded, then immediately thought better of it at the pained look on John’s face.

“Don’t remember much about that, to be honest, so I’ll take your word for it.” John tried for a light tone, but the thought clearly anguished him.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock said quietly. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

John shook his head. “No, it’s all right,” he hurried to say. “They say the best thing for me at this point is not to have any…secrets, you know. Not to have anything that’s off-limits.” He looked down at his hands, which were clenched together, his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward more.

“Does that help?”

John’s shoulder gave a hint of a shrug. “Hard to say. I suppose it does, yeah.” He looked at Sherlock now, into his eyes, then looked away. Sherlock saw his throat bob as he swallowed nervously. His eyes shone.

“Do you want me to leave?” Sherlock said it so softly that it was nearly lost in the mumble of the television.

John’s head jerked up as though he’d shouted it. “Why would you say that?”

Sherlock shrugged again. “It took you quite awhile to decide to allow me to see you,” he said, “and you’re growing progressively more agitated the longer I’m here.”

That broke something in John’s thin patina of control, and now the tears were there.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out. He gripped his own hands so tightly that the pressure points turned white.

“Sorry? Sorry for what?” Sherlock leaned forward, mirroring John’s pose on the edge of the chair. They were closer now, but not close enough to touch. “Sorry for sacrificing yourself to save my life? Sorry for—“

John shook his head. “No, I’m sorry because…I’m not the man I was before. I can’t…I _can’t_ be the man I was before. Not _ever_ , do you understand?”

Sherlock felt something flare in him so strong that it made his chest feel like flame.

“Of course you’re not the man you were before,” he snapped, and once the words started, he couldn’t stop them. “Why on earth would you be? Nor am I, in case it’s not obvious looking at me. What’s happened to us has changed the men we are, as it should.”

“Sherlock,” John was shaking his head, anguished, tears coming down his cheeks now. “You don’t understand—“

The words kept tumbling from Sherlock now that he’d opened the gate. “I understand that you believe the change for you has not been for the good, which makes sense at this juncture, of course. I can only imagine what it must be like to have been through what’s been done to you. I _do_ imagine it, in fact. Every day. I think _all the time_  about what that _bastard_ must have done to you. And I can barely move, it fills me with such unspeakable _rage._ ”

“Stop,” John said, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Please stop…”

Sherlock drew in a breath, closed his mouth, biting his lip. John struggled for control, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose and wiping at the tears. His chest was heaving.

Pain rose in Sherlock now, like something catching in his throat. “I’m sorry if I’ve said too much.”

“No,” John replied firmly. “No, it’s good… good to say it. That’s what they’ve said.” He drew in a shaky breath. “I just...I don’t want you to think things can be the way they were, yeah?”

Sherlock grew still. “What are you saying?”

John only shook his head.

“John?” Now he felt the first edges of anguish creeping in.

John shook his head again, a small sound coming from his throat like a faint moan. “I just—“ He couldn’t get it out.

“Do you not want me in your life? Is that what you’re saying?” There was a desperate hint to it, a crack at the edge.

John looked at him. “No,” he said, the words catching on each choked breath. He touched his chest, hard and frustrated. “I’m saying I don’t want you to be with _this_ man.”

Sherlock’s jaw, his fists, clenched. A rush of adrenaline hit him so hard that he felt sick. It took all he had not to give into the rage at Moriarty and begin ranting again. If he could raise the man from the grave, he’d do it just to kill him again.

What he did was come forward from the chair onto his knees, his hands coming down to rest on the tops of John’s knees. John’s body stiffened at the contact and he looked away.

“Look at me,” Sherlock said softly, looking up into John’s face. John shook his head. “John. _Look at me._ ”

Finally John turned and met his gaze, his mouth turned down and tears coming again. Sherlock took a deep breath.

“You belong with me,” he murmured. “The man you were. The man you are. The man you will be.” Then he reached up and curved a hand around John’s coarse cheek. “Do you understand?”

John shook his head. “I can’t.” He choked out another breath.

Sherlock nodded, reached into the pocket of the shirt beneath his sweater and drew a slip of paper out, the one he’d written on that morning before he and Thomas left the house.

“I understand that you can't now,” he said gently, stroking at a tear above John’s beard with his thumb. “But when you’re ready – and you will be, I promise – this is where I’ll be.” Then he turned John’s hand over and slid the slip of paper in.

John tried to say something, but it faded into that same pained sound from his throat again. He turned his head, fists tightening. He’d begun to shake. The sight of it tore so hard at Sherlock that felt sick to his stomach.

“I’m going,” Sherlock said softly. “I don’t think it’s helpful for you to be this upset. But I’d very much like to have my arms around you for a moment before I leave.” He slid the hand on John’s cheek down to the side of his throat. “May I do that?”

John nodded after a beat, and Sherlock came up from where he sat on his heels, arms going around John’s back and pulling him in. He pressed his face to John’s hair and breathed him in.

John’s arms worked around him slowly, but his fists stayed tight. His breath trembled out against Sherlock’s skin.

“I love you,” Sherlock breathed against him. “I always will. Please don't forget that.”

That sound again from John, but no words. He clenched Sherlock closer and nodded instead.

 

*****

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER NINETEEN.


	19. Chapter 19

**CHAPTER NINETEEN**

 

John Watson was not a prisoner in this place. John reminded himself of this fact as he walked down the path through the forest on the grounds, hands sunk deep in the pockets of the wool Army-issue coat, as the house fell further and further behind him. 

He reminded himself of this because he’d never been able to shake the feeling that Moriarty was still watching him, controlling him, keeping him close. It didn’t matter what the doctors at Landstahl had said, Chris, the other SEALS. It didn’t matter what Gilpin had said just before he’d left the main part of the grounds. 

Not that he would admit it to anyone.

“No one will come after you, John,” Dr. Gilpin had promised, standing with him at the door to John’s quarters in the house. “Do you understand?”

“Of course I understand,” he’d replied peevishly, pulling his black scarf closer to his chin, face going warm. “I’m not a bloody idiot, you know.” The day had been hard and he was rattled. Gilpin’s words weren’t helping. 

Gilpin had just smiled gently. “I do know that. I just feel like I need to tell you.” 

He was a kind man, John thought. He had been from the first day John had arrived. 

_What had it even been now?_ John wondered. _Two months?_ And three weeks since Sherlock had come and gone. 

_Christ,_ John thought, shaking his head. Time was still strange for him, so fuzzy. He felt unrooted, not in his life Moriarty had constructed for him but not quite back in his old one either. He felt like a man without a world.

The snow was falling all across the south of England, the weather report had said, and it was beginning to lay an opaque layer on the path as John walked. He could feel it tapping in his short hair. He ran his finger softly over the now-worn piece of paper in the pocket of his coat. 

“So you do know where he is,” Irene had said earlier that afternoon, reading the bit of paper that John had handed her on his couch. 

They’d been talking niceties for a bit, her asking how he was, him doing the same. The subject of Sherlock had come up, him staying at a family house, and he’d said he knew that and had drawn the piece from the pocket of his jeans and handed it to her. Seeing her – even though she looked so different, all loose hair and thick sweater and woolen pants – was difficult for him. He’d considered not allowing her visit at all.

“Yes, he…came here,” John had replied softly, doing his level best to keep the nervousness from his voice. “Three weeks ago. Didn’t he tell you?” 

“No, I didn’t know,” she said. “I went out of the country when he left the hospital. I’ve only been back with him a week.” 

She had handed the piece of paper back to him, and he stared at the two fish tattooed on her hand and something pricked at him like pain. 

“Plus,” she added, meeting his eyes as he looked up, her gaze a bit troubled now. “He’s not nearly the talker these days.”

John’s brow creased a bit at her tone. “Oh?”

“Yes,” Irene said softly. “He’s spent too much time in his head with all this and it’s hard for him to come out sometimes. His body’s been slow to come back around from the treatments. The pneumonia hasn’t helped.”

“He’s had pneumonia?” John’s voice had risen in concern.

“Yes,” Irene replied, confusion in it. “I’m sorry, I assumed someone would have told you.”

“No,” John said, shaking his head. “I’ve been…no one’s…” He trailed off, realizing how much everyone was still shielding him. “Is he all right?”

Irene sighed, and he saw suddenly how tired she was. “He’s better, but he’s not well. Not that he’ll listen to anyone about it. He’s giving the doctor Mycroft’s got caring for him a fit. I’ve been staying with him since Monday last, trying to get him to follow the doctor’s advice, but…”

John forced a wan smile. “Been there, yeah.” 

“He needs you, John.” The words fell like a brick, stilling him. Her eyes were boring into his and he looked away. 

“I can’t help him,” John had said, forcing the words out. 

“Yes, well, I don’t want to hear that from you,” she replied instantly, something sad underneath the snap of it. “You’re the only one who can.”

He felt blood rushing to his face, anger washing in. “Christ, Irene, do you know--” he stuttered for the words. “--what I’ve been through? What I’ve nearly done?“

“I know what’s happened to you,” she cut in. “I saw it firsthand in Tunis, for starters. And in case you don’t recall, I had my own taste of Moriarty’s particular brand of cruelty not so long ago, and I know all too well the desire to lick your wounds and hide away. I did it for a while, but then I came back. And you’d better come back as well because we’re going to lose Sherlock if you don’t.”

“I can’t be his caretaker anymore,” he replied, shaking his head. “I’m not—“

“Be his _lover,_ for God’s sake!” Her eyes seem to flash as her voice rose, chiseled and angry now. “You _do_ love the man, don’t you? That hasn’t changed?”

John swallowed, clenched his hands together as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “No,” he said quietly. “But you don’t understand. I’m not…I’m not a good man anymore. Moriarty made me--” 

“Oh Christ, John, Moriarty’s dead,” she’d said, exasperated. “I killed him myself. I shot out his kneecaps and sent him onto all fours on his posh rug like a dog. I taunted him, and I put a bullet in his balls and his eye just to be cruel. Then I blew his brains out the back of his head. I listened to his screaming and I enjoyed every _second_ of it.” 

John looked at her, a feeling coming that mixed surprise and respect with a bit of fear.

She went on, leaning forward and reaching for the tea he’d made her when she came in. “So you don’t think you’re as good a man as you were before, well _none of us_ are good, not all the way through. Welcome to the human race.”

John stopped on the path as he recalled this, snow tapping the woods around him softly, considering all she’d said. All that she’d said then and as she was leaving, as he helped her into her coat and scarf. 

“Thank you for visiting,” he said politely, smoothing her collar down. He caught a ghost of her perfume as he did so. He remembered her mouth on his. She turned to face him and he had a hard time meeting her gaze.

“Yes, it’s been lovely,” she said dryly, and it teased a smile from him. “Now consider what I’ve said, all right? Come to Sussex. Give Sherlock something to concentrate on.”

“Right, I’ll drum up a case for him,” he replied, crossing his arms in front of him. “That’ll save him for sure.”  
She smiled sadly and stroked his face. “No cases,” she said, shaking her head. “And you won’t just save him by going. I think you’ll save _you_ , as well.”

Snow falling harder now and John looked up into the gray sky. His fingers kept worrying the soft paper between his fingers, his breath puffing out. Finally he turned and walked with purpose over his own trail of footprints back toward the house.

 

***

“You’re not going to bore me with a ‘bats in my belfry’ joke, are you?”

Sherlock’s bored voice drifted to Irene as she opened the door to his bedroom, and though she actually _did_ feel like killing him at the moment, she couldn’t help but smile as she closed the door behind her and entered the room. 

“Honestly, Sherlock, it wounds me that you would think me incapable of coming up with something better than _that_.” She went to him where he sat in an armchair next to a small fire in flannel pajamas and a jumper, reading lamp on beside him, book of drawings open on his lap.

“Tom’s been so fond of it that he’s used it _twice_ ,” he said, not looking up, sarcasm dripping from every word. “The second time I said, ‘yes, Tom, quite clever. I was out in a church steeple studying the noctule bat colony there and managed to send myself into a relapse. I must have _bats in my belfry_ to do such a thing. So amusing!’” 

She watched him roll his eyes as she stood in front of him. He turned the page (drawings of shells), tucked his thick black cardigan closer over his T-shirt. He sighed _God_ underneath his breath.

“No belfry jokes,” she said, leaning down to press her lips to his forehead. “But it does make me a bit perturbed that the minute I leave you on your own, you go against the doctor’s orders again and go outside.”

“Mum,” he faux-whined, but she felt him lean a touch into her lips. She huffed a breath of a laugh.

“You’re running a fever, love,” she said softly.

“I’m aware.” 

She reached for the book, sliding it out of his hands. “Then why aren’t you lying down?”

He made a disgusted sound in his throat but allowed her to help him up, her arms going around his back. Some of the weight he’d regained was gone again.

“Someone’s been to Cornwall,” he said softly.

“Well guessed,” she said easily, getting him to the bed. He was slow to sit.

“I never guess,” he said, pushing off his slippers. “The smell of the place where John is staying is distinctive and is still on you. You must have had damp hair.” 

She smiled faintly down at him. His hair was just long enough now to smooth down. “It was snowing, yes. What’s it smell like?”

“John,” he said quietly. “How is he?” He glanced up at her, his eyes sunk in dark circles, stubble on his face. His lips were pale.

“He seems much more like himself,” she replied, pulling back the covers and helping him lie down. 

“That’s…good,” he said softly, settling slowly and pulling the covers up to his waist. “I’m glad.” 

He forced a ghost of a smile as she sat on the bed’s edge, leaned down and crossed her arms on his chest. She rested her chin there, her face close to his. Then she slid an arm up so she could stroke his hair.

“You miss him so much.” She whispered it. 

He said nothing for a long moment, curling a strand of her hair around one of his thin fingers. “Yes.”

She gave him sad smile. “Soon, I think.” 

He looked toward the window, his eyes far away, and didn’t reply.

Finally she said into the silence: “I’m going with Lily to Amsterdam first thing in the morning. But I’ll be back in London for New Year’s.” 

He looked back at her. “Thank you for visiting me…for helping me,” he amended. 

“Well, I didn’t do much more than listen to you whinge and fetch you tea.” She gave a put-upon sigh, shaking her head.

He smiled softly, reached out to touch her face. “You did much more than that,” he said, and she returned the smile. “I needed a friend.” Something sparkled in his tired eyes. “Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

She chuffed a laugh, leaned up and touched his chin with her lips. “Not a thing.”

 

***

 

Snow further south, but north of London there was cold gray rain. The ring of his mobile phone was definitely the brightest thing that had happened to Mycroft Holmes that day.

“Yes?” he said, setting his newspaper down on his lap. A log fell in the fire.

“Mr. Holmes, it’s Hal Gilpin down in Cornwall,” came the voice on the other end. 

“He’s ready to go,” he replied, no hint of a question in it. 

“Yes,” Gilpin said. 

Mycroft looked toward the woolen light coming through the window, the rain. “Do we know where he intends to go?”

“Sussex is what he’s told me, but you might be prepared for him in London as well. I think he’s concerned about the…symptoms being an issue.”

Mycroft pursed his lips. “I see.” 

Gilpin sighed, sounding tired. “Let’s hope he makes it to Sussex and stays. I still believe it’s the best transition possible for him.”

Mycroft suddenly had a memory of the last time he’d seen Sherlock, when Mycroft had stayed through the worst of the pneumonia’s course. His brother was still so weak physically, and he was becoming ghostly and detached. 

“Yes, I agree that Sussex would be best,” he said, swallowing the worry down. 

 

***

Late afternoon the following day, snow up to the ankles of Sherlock’s boots, he’d taken advantage of Tom’s trip to the market and Irene’s absence to find his way to the field outside the ruins of burnt-out church once again. He had one measurement to do and to the devil with Tom or Dr. Newell if they told him he couldn’t take it. 

 

Thirty minutes outside the house wouldn’t make that much of a difference anyway. More dangerous than the cold was him being bored out of his mind.

A colony of noctule bats had chosen the steeple of the old church for their hibernation, and he had taken an interest in their movements as he’d slowly walked the grounds when he’d first arrived. He followed their swirling, the high chitter of their echolocation floating in the evening air, across the field on the south side of the grounds. There he saw the animals slipping through the broken slats in the steeple’s sides and promised to investigate the colony once it settled down.

He watched them through their sluggish phase, 500 or more of them huddled together in the rafters and along the rough wood walls. At one point he crept closer and ran a hand over their dark bodies, the strange texture of their stranger wings.

The cold and the musty, dirty air around the bats had been too much for his compromised lungs, however, and the pneumonia had taken him down. He was irked to have missed watching their movement from torpor to hibernation sleep. 

He’d come out at mid-day to see the slant of the light. He’d brought a small milking stool with him from the kitchen (Tom was a bit short, in addition to being stout) and he sat on it in Mycroft’s blue down parka and his knit cap and took readings on the angle of the sun with a heavy protractor he’d found with his father’s things. 

His breath was puffing out in the frigid air as he wrote the numbers down in a small Moleskin on his knee. He tried to concentrate his energy on the task but his mind kept drifting, indulging the leaden feeling of numbness that had taken up residence in him. He’d been fighting it for what felt like ages now – the silent and (he had to say it) lonely – existence he’d now found himself mired within, and it was beginning to overtake his ability to hold it at bay.

He set the instrument down on the top of his boot, rubbed his frozen hands on the soft corduroy of his too-big trouser’s legs. He looked around the field, the unbroken white of it to the edge of the snow-draped trees. 

The blank, cold field was much like the space outside that door in his Palace he’d spent so much energy _not_ going through. Now he wondered if he’d simply fought against vanishing into that desolate place in his mind only to lose himself in this place instead.

He felt weaker than he’d ever been. He doubted himself as he had never before in some fundamental way. His own body with its too-sharp bones and paler skin was a stranger to him.

And while Sherlock never believed it possible before, he was beginning to lose just the first bit of hope that John would come back to him.

He closed his eyes and instantly grew angry with himself.

_You’ll do what you’ve always done, for pity’s sake. You’ll get better in time and be able to do everything you did before. Stop being maudlin and **ridiculous** …_

He pushed himself to his feet, grabbing the protractor as he went. Then, his eyes determined on the steeple again, he started stalking in a short arc to catch the shadows from the afternoon light. He ducked down, stood up, checking every angle. Finally he ended up standing on the stool and shielding his eyes to look from there.

Behind him, a short burst of hesitant laughter, then, quiet and amused. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing up there?” 

Sherlock jerked his head around toward the sound and John was there, shirts and sweater layered beneath his black Haversack coat, full beard still, gloves on his hands. He wore a soft, exasperated smile and a lot of new gray in his shorter hair.

“John,” Sherlock replied, stepping down and turning to face him. “You’re here.”

“So it would seem.” John’s smile turned fond as he looked at him. Their gaze hung for a long few beats and Sherlock saw that John’s eyes were still bloodshot and well beyond the point of usual fatigue. John made no effort to come toward him, so Sherlock also held his ground.

Sherlock gestured with a thumb behind him. “I was just measuring the angles of light going into the colony in the steeple over there.“

“The what?” John asked, blinking.

Sherlock pointed to the steeple now. “The _colony_. Noctule bats. The population has been in decline and I thought there might be something in the hibernating colony sizes that--”

“Yeah, and I heard you’re coming back from pneumonia,” John cut in gently, putting up his hands. “So there’s nothing you should be doing out here.” The worry flashed in his eyes and he cleared his throat nervously as he hid it again. “Plus, I’m starving. Let’s go in.”

Sherlock nodded, tucking the protractor into his pocket and bending to pick up the stool. “Are you staying for a bit?” He said it casually and was proud of himself for it.

But when Sherlock stood and turned back toward him, John had clenched his hands behind his back and was looking down again. He drew in a breath to apologize, but John was already saying what Sherlock knew he’d say.

“Look, I can’t…promise anything, yeah?” He looked back into Sherlock’s face with difficulty.

“No, no,” Sherlock said instantly. “John, I wasn’t--.” He put out placating hands, realized he was doing it and dropped them again. “Of course. Of _course_.”

“I don’t really know…who I am after all this.” He gave a soft huff of a laugh, gaze falling to the ground.

“Nor do I,” Sherlock replied softly, opening his arms as though presenting this strange new body to John, who looked at him, angling his head as he understood.

“Maybe we could just…” John pulled his hands back around and put them in the pockets of his coat instead. “Maybe we could just see how things go,” he finished, an uncertain smile on his face.

Sherlock nodded, gave John a warm smile. “That sounds like an excellent plan.”

Then Sherlock did come forward, choosing his steps carefully in the snow. John reached toward him as he got close, took his arm, and led him back toward the house.

 

***

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER TWENTY.


	20. Chapter 20

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

 

The first time Sherlock noticed John staring was the next morning over breakfast, which Tom had served to them both in the matching armchairs by the fireplace in the living room.

“Here you go, Dr. Watson,” Tom had said, handing John the plate of kippers, eggs, and toast. He’d very much taken the newcomer in stride, and Sherlock strongly suspected Mycroft had had a hand in that.

“Thanks,” John had replied as he took it. “And please, call me John.” He smiled, and Tom said nothing but gave him a wink.

After they ate, both of their plates discarded on the small tables beside the chairs (John’s fork and knife crossed neatly the way he’d always done, Sherlock noted, which pleased him somehow), Sherlock had picked up his book of Haeckel’s Radiolarian prints again. John – freshly showered and dressed in khaki trousers and a blue jumper Sherlock had never seen before – had picked up the newspaper Tom had brought from town the previous day and, after a time, was trying to look surreptitiously at Sherlock over the top of it.

“Problem?” Sherlock said after awhile. He said it softly, fondly. It felt familiar in a way that warmed something in his chest.

“No, no problem,” John replied, trying to sound casual as he returned his gaze to the newspaper. Sherlock stayed still, just looking back him expectantly, and John’s eyes flicked up and he cleared his throat.

“It’s nothing,” John said softly, awkwardly. “I’d just forgotten how blue your eyes are, is all.” Then he returned to staring at the paper intently, his ears flushed at the tips.

“I have central heterochromia,” Sherlock said automatically, turning a page of his book and looking down. “My eyes are both blue and green.”

“I know that, you git,” John replied. “I know every shade your eyes can be.” He feigned a grump in his tone to undercut the intimacy of the words, gave Sherlock a quick hint of a smile over his newspaper as he turned the page.

Sherlock smiled back then returned his eyes to his book almost shyly, fingertip stroking his brow.

**

The first time John touched Sherlock -- _really_ touched him, not just a brush by him on the stairs or in the kitchen – it was 2:00 in the morning on his fourth night living in the house. He’d been lying in bed, just up from a nightmare that had thankfully only jerked him from a sweat-soaked sleep without the histrionics that they sometimes brought.  He was doing the countdown from 50 that he’d been taught to calm him when he heard the sounds.

It was faint, but he could hear a heavy, wracking coughing coming from the direction of Sherlock’s room.

John slipped from the bed, reached for the thick navy dressing gown hanging on a hook by the door. The fire in his room had all but died out, leaving it cool despite the radiator hissing by the far wall. He creaked open the door and looked out.

Moonlight was streaming down the narrow hall from the high window at its end. No sign of Tom, no movement, just the persistent sound. He walked toward it, tying his gown as he went.

“Sherlock?” he called softly, tapping on the closed door. No response but another round of the hacking cough. “Sherlock, I’m coming in.” Then he pushed the door open and went in.

Sherlock sat on the edge of the bed wearing gray flannel pyjama bottoms, his long-sleeved shirt off and balled against his rail-thin chest. He was shaking his head, still coughing, and John came toward the bed, noting immediately why the shirt was off: Sherlock had coughed until he vomited and caught most of it in the bottom of his shirt. The rest spattered one trouser leg and the rug’s tasseled edge.

John winced. “All right,” he soothed, taking the shirt and dropping it on the floor. “It’s all right.” Then he stepped just between Sherlock’s knees, put one hand in the center of Sherlock’s chest and the other on the back of his neck.

“Tilt your head back and straighten a bit,” he murmured, looking into Sherlock’s red-rimmed, watering eyes. “Breathe through your nose and get one good breath.”

Sherlock’s chest was starting to spasm with another cough, but he nodded and held most of it and did as John said, pulling in most of full shaky breath.

John stepped closer, fingers curling tighter against Sherlock’s skin. “That’s it. Do it again.”

Tears from the exertion slid down his cheeks as Sherlock did, nodding again.

“Better,” he rasped.

“Shhh.” John reached up and stroked the wetness from Sherlock’s cheeks with his thumbs, and once he’d done it, he realized how intimate the gesture seemed.

 _Shit,_ he thought, going still. He knew the regret was on his face when Sherlock reached up and gripped his wrists, holding them close to his face.

“No,” Sherlock said quickly, his voice strained. “You can.” There was something sad and reassuring in Sherlock’s gaze and he nodded again.

John swallowed, nodded, resting his hands on Sherlock’s shoulders, one part of him welling up and another assuring him he wasn’t ready for this just yet. The latter feeling is the one that spoke.

“When was your last breathing treatment? Did Newell come by after tea?”

Sherlock nodded, puffing another cough.

“We need to shift the schedule a bit later,” John said, shaking his head and stepping back.  He went into the drawer in the bedside table where Newell kept Sherlock’s meds, pulled an inhaler out. “I’ll speak to him in the morning, but let’s do this for now.”

As Sherlock took the hits, John glanced over him again. He hadn’t seen him without a shirt since that night at the hospital--

A sick feeling slammed into him, and John grabbed the thought hard and shoved it back down.

Sherlock was leaned slightly forward now, drawing in slower, calmer breaths. John took the opportunity to study his nearly hairless torso, the pinking scars from long-term IV lines, the surgical scar where they’d taken out his spleen a much neater and smaller job than John’s trauma surgery had been.

Mostly he just found himself hung up on how different Sherlock looked with so much muscle gone. _Christ, he’s thin._

He went to the dresser on the other side of the room, opened drawers until he found a blue pair of pyjama bottoms and another white long-sleeved thermal shirt. He pulled them out and laid them next to Sherlock on the bed.

“Change into those,” he said, going toward the bath. “I’ll get you something to clean up with.”

He was standing at the sink, drenching a hand towel beneath the stream of warm water and wringing it out, when he glanced over at Sherlock, now standing by the bed and stepping out of the bottoms, leaving nothing but a bare ass facing John underneath.

John couldn’t help the puff of mirth he felt as color rose on his cheeks, and Sherlock looked over his shoulder at the sound.

“What?” he asked.

“Foregoing the pants these days?”

Sherlock looked the slightest bit awkward, which made John even more amused. “I decided I prefer the air,” he said, sounding a bit embarrassed as he shrugged. Then, in a fit of Holmesian pique, he squinted down his brow and asked: “Problem?”

John turned back to the hand towel, wrung it out hard as he shook his head. “I didn’t say that.”

 

**

_Moriarty was coming down the hall toward him. Moriarty was taking him back to the room. The two doctors were there – a man and a woman, and Moriarty was over him, his thumb pressed down on the needle above John’s wrist_

The screams he managed in these dreams seemed to fill his entire body with a swirl of wind. The screaming was what saved him, the doctors had said, the screaming—

_Christ, John, come out of it_

That’s when the crush of the weight of two bodies slammed into him, chest pressed hard to hard wood floor, someone’s buttons ( _Tom’s pyjama top_ ) digging into his tightly pinned legs.

_GET OFF ME GET THE FUCK OFF ME—_

“All right, **enough**!” Sherlock’s voice loud against his ear, then more quietly. “It’s all right…you’re safe, now shhhh…”

Some distant part of John was amazed at how quickly he could still pull his body into the tight ball he’d spent a week in at Landstahl. It was the exact position of every fire-crisped corpse he’d ever seen. They’d had to sedate him every time they examined him.

He heard Sherlock’s voice speaking again, saying: “I’ve got him now, Tom.”

Another voice answered _Are you sure, Mr. Holmes? He doesn’t quite seem himself just yet…_

Sherlock said something else, then there was a slow release of his legs that allowed him to pull the limbs even closer in.

Sherlock was warm over him, beside him as he shifted off and sat with his thigh against John’s back, broad hand stroking his hair. John could smell him. But instead of moving, he just stared through the bars of the banister that led down the Great House’s central staircase.

_Do you want to go back to your bed? It’s warmer. You’ll be more comfortable there._

Sherlock’s words floated to him as if from very far away. They felt like a memory, the words, so he didn’t answer them. Instead he concentrated on the warm body behind him, the hand in his hair.

_Then I’ll just sit here with you until--_

But John blacked out and didn’t hear the rest.

 

**

“All right, gents, who’s up for a topper?”

Sherlock and John looked in unison at Tom in the doorway to the Study, the only room in the stately old house that would stoop to have a television and a comfortable couch. They put the tree up that morning for Christmas Eve, and the lights of the tree and the television were the only ones on in the room.

“Here,” Sherlock called over the sounds of telly. He reached over and clicked on the side table lamp, sending out a dim glow near his glass.

“Yeah sure,” John said, his voice sleepy and perhaps, Sherlock noted, slurring a bit. He took the highball glass from John and set it next to his own.

Tom came forward, more casual than usual in dark trousers and a Christmas vest on over his white shirt. He had a small silver tray of tiny sausage pastries, a glass decanter of scotch in his other hand.

“What’s on?” he asked, handing the tray to Sherlock, who tucked it in the small space between he and John’s thighs on the couch. John picked one up and popped it in his mouth.

Sherlock looked up. “Let’s see. Well, first it was some dreadful thing about people driving gauche customized cars in the apparently one long curve that is Tokyo--”

John gave a nearly silly giggle. Sherlock smiled at the sound. _Yes, tipsy._

Sherlock yawned as he continued. “…Then we decided on Sir Albert Finney’s version of _A Christmas Carol_ …”

“Oh that’s quite nice, yes,” Tom said, pouring the drinks and handing them over.

“…And now we’re onto…” Sherlock gestured toward the television with his glass, “…whatever this is.” He leaned back as he finished, a smile on his face.

“Looks like St. Paul’s Choir,” Tom said. “Nice way to end a Christmas Eve.”

He stood up, regarding both of them. “If there’s nothing else you boys will be needing, I’ll be heading out until the morning of the 26th. I’ve got dishes ready to go in the fridge, all’s in place, and Dr. Newell’s on call here with his family just up the way.”

Sherlock groaned. “Honestly, we’re both grown men.”

“We’ll be fine, Tom,” John added, giving Sherlock a chiding look. “Happy Christmas. And thanks.”

Sherlock watched Tom wink at John and rolled his eyes, but John gave his side a touch with his elbow as Tom turned to walk away.

“What? Oh…yes, Happy Christmas, Tom.” He said it with his best forced grin, clicking off the side table light.

“To you as well, Mr. Holmes,” Tom called behind him cheerfully, and he was gone.

The camera was doing a soft-focus pan over red and white candles surrounded by holly leaves, “In the Bleak Midwinter” the song behind. Both of them had their legs up and crossed at the ankles, Sherlock in the loose-fitting black cords and John in older jeans. Sherlock’s blue sweater was open to reveal a worn white T-shirt underneath. John shirt was open to the third snap down, the top of the scar on his sternum peeking out. Their legs were washed in the dim light of the telly and dotted with the tiny points of the tree’s multicolored light.

John yawned luxuriously. “Knackered,” he said, eyes hooded with whiskey and fatigue. “Even though I haven’t done a thing all day.”

“Tired, yes.” Sherlock gave him a sleepy smile as John picked up the tray and offered it to him. Sherlock waved it away.

“I wish you’d eat a bit more,” John said gruffly, setting the tray down on the table.

“I had half the last tray!” Sherlock protested, rubbing his face.

“Oh yes, this _enormous_ tray…” John leaned back, his shoulder touching Sherlock’s now. They grew still again, the carol and the sleepy Christmas scenes floating on the television for a few moments. Sherlock could feel John’s warmth through the jumper’s sleeve.

“You off to bed?” Sherlock asked.

“Thought I might,” John answered. He turned his face toward Sherlock, lowered his voice as he added: “Thank you for a nice Christmas Eve.”

Sherlock turned to look at him, met his tired gaze with his own. “It was my privilege,” he said, his own voice deepening as well. He gave John a tentative smile. It was very warm and the lights made it sleepy, close in the room.

John looked into his eyes for a long beat, his brows creasing down, then he leaned forward and touched Sherlock’s brow with his lips. As he pulled away, he leaned his forehead against Sherlock’s and held it there.

“Thank you for being so…patient,” he said softly. “I know I haven’t been easy, and you’ve been very kind.”

“You’ve been fine,” Sherlock replied, a bit of exasperation sneaking in. “Far better than me who still needs help just getting around the house. And I’m in love with you, you _dullard_. I’m not being kind.”

John huffed out a fond laugh, bumping their foreheads. Then he grew quiet and just held still.

Sherlock tried to act as though it were any other time he and John had done this, sat with their faces close or touching as they sprawled together on a couch. He reached up and laid his hand gently on the side of John’s head. Then Sherlock tilted his chin up a little further as instinct suggested, putting his mouth mere inches from John’s. From there, John looked into his eyes and leaned in.

One long touch. Sherlock rubbed his lower lip against John’s lips, scruffed cheek warm against Sherlock’s wrist. John opened his mouth on the next kiss. Sherlock was careful to let him guide how deep the kiss went, that one and the next. He let himself sink back into the couch as John lifted his body, leaning over Sherlock and taking the lead.

John’s hand was caressing the back of his head now, and Sherlock smoothed his tongue over John’s bottom lip.

“I've missed you like this,” Sherlock breathed between their mouths’ soft touches. John answered by nodding and deepening the kiss. When he pulled back, his breathing had quickened a bit.

“Sherlock, I can’t…” He shook his head.

“It’s fine,” Sherlock replied gently. “This is fine.”

John’s brows clenched down and he closed his eyes, leaning in for another kiss.

The music in the background, they kept at it for a time, going slowly, hands roaming on each other’s faces and chests. John curved an arm around Sherlock’s torso beneath his jumper, pulling them together tight. He drew back after a time and leaned their faces close again, his eyes down.

“When I was in Tunis,” he said haltingly into the quiet that followed. “I…I slept with someone.”

Sherlock nodded, his expression unchanging, hands gripping lightly on John’s waist. “With Lily, yes.”

John nearly winced. “Irene told you what happened, then.”

“She did.” Sherlock took to caressing John’s hair, then running the backs of his fingers across his beard.

“I’m so sorry.” There was something miserable in it.

“Don’t,” Sherlock said, shaking his head.

John shook his head. “I would never—“

“Look at me,” Sherlock cut in, and when John did, he went on, speaking firmly and softly. “Nothing you did to help you survive will _ever_ be questioned by me. _Nothing_ you did.”

John nodded, the anguish still tugging at the corners of his mouth and eyes.

“Come here,” Sherlock whispered and John leaned forward, face pressed to the side of Sherlock’s throat and Sherlock’s fingers caressing his hair.

 

**

Christmas Day brought a cold, gray morning that they both let stretch on by sleeping late. When Sherlock did rise, John was already up and downstairs in the kitchen; he could hear John setting pots and pans down, smell coffee as he moved down the stairs in his pyjamas and dressing gown.

John had a striped tea towel tucked in the back pocket of his jeans, boots on, faded red shirt buttoned to his neck. His hair was slicked back and down in the military style he’d appropriated while with Moriarty, beard neatly trimmed.

It had been a difficult night for him, Sherlock realized. All the tells were there – John was dressed too early, his appearance tight and controlled. He hadn’t yet heard Sherlock approach and was standing there glaring down at the eggs as he stirred, his jaw clenched.

“Good morning,” Sherlock said as he entered the room, giving John a smile. John’s head jerked toward him in surprise, angry expression instantly smoothing out.

“Morning,” he replied, giving Sherlock a faint, forced smile.

“Are you all right?” Sherlock asked, stopping at the edge of the counter.

“Yeah, fine,” John hurried to reply, his voice higher as though he were nervous. He returned his eyes to the skillet. “Eggs and toast good?”

“Of course,” Sherlock said and, sensing that John needed space, he went around the counter to the table, lowering himself into a wooden chair. He stayed quiet, pretending to read yesterday’s paper, as John served the food onto plates and set one at each of their places. Then he went back and poured two cups of coffee and brought them as well.

“Happy Christmas,” John said with a sad sort of cheer as he sat.

Sherlock smiled back at him. “Happy Christmas, John.”

 

*

Back out in the field measuring the angle of the light, and this time John had gone with him, insisting Sherlock wear a thicker parka and a stocking cap since the temperature had dropped overnight. Even John was bundled up more, a cap on his own head and a thick scarf around his neck that he’d tucked in his coat.

They stood on the snowy field, John taking up position behind Sherlock and to his right. It was a very familiar position for him, watching Sherlock moving around with the tool in his uneven arc with a pencil clenched between his teeth. Every minute or so he would scribble down a measurement in a small brown journal, then move to another spot. John watched him, arms across his chest.

Sherlock began mumbling to himself, a rapid-fire quiet dissertation on the heat needed by the bat colony, the correctness of the steeple’s rise, the words _yes_ and _of course_ peppered in. John smiled, a warm contented feeling seeping in his chest. Sometimes, watching Sherlock work on something, that new awe at the man’s mind would come back. That such a creature would choose to give himself to John made him feel, despite all he’d been through, like an incredibly lucky man.

“What’s that look about?” Sherlock ‘s voice broke in, and John knew he’d likely been staring.

“Nothing,” he said, giving a little shrug and a soft smile. “I just…I love you.”

Sherlock swallowed and looked back, his eyes bright. He smiled.

Just then a shot rang out by the tree line, its echo tearing across the field as a dark cloud of startled ravens burst from the trees. As they took off, another shot rang out.

It felt like something had caught fire in John’s chest, adrenaline surging so hard he actually saw red. He screamed for Sherlock to get down, moving by pure instinct and knocked him to the ground. Sherlock crumpled in the snow, John pulling him in against his chest, an arm over his shoulder and the other curved over his own head.

His breath was pumping in and out as he scanned the edges of the field. Two figures were there, just boys from the size, both of them holding the hunting rifles they’d fired at the birds.

“John—“ Sherlock tried against his chest.

“ _OI!_ ” John bellowed toward the boys. “You two! What the fuck are you doing?!” When they saw John and Sherlock, they took off running.

“They’re just boys,” Sherlock said, lifting his head. “Probably given those guns for Christmas. It’s all right, they’re just shooting at the birds.”

“It’s private fucking property!” John roared. “They could bloody well kill—“ He jerked himself up into a standing position, fists clenched in his gloves, looking toward the trees. “ _Fucking_ hell!”

Sherlock pulled himself into a sitting position as John took a few steps toward the trees. There were black shapes on the ground there, two or three ravens that must have been clustered together when the buckshot hit the branches. One of them was floundering on the ground a few hundred feet away. John, breath still huffing out too fast, went toward it, snow boots crunching on the snowy ground as he ran.

John heard Sherlock calling to him, following him, but it still put him far behind by the time John reached the ruined bird. The usually graceful creature was rolling, black wings awkwardly akimbo as it threw itself across the ground. There was a trail of blood and broken snow stretched out behind it. The two other birds lay still around in a scatter of black feathers.

Scrambling after it, John grabbed the bird, the raven screeching as he struggled to pin its flapping wings. It was spattering his face with bloody dots. Its great beak ripped at his gloves.

“Hold still, you bastard so I can see—“ John said through clenched teeth. Sherlock made it beside him, heaving tired breaths.

“Kill it,” he panted.

John shook his head, still struggling with the creature. It had made it through his glove and ripped into his skin. “No, I’m going to—“

“It’s done for,” Sherlock replied, voice rising.

Just like that, the rage roared in him. “ _NO!_ ” he shouted, “If I can just—“

“JOHN!” Sherlock called just as loud, going to his knees beside him. “The poor thing’s suffering, for God’s sake! _Kill it!_ ”

“ _I FUCKING WON’T DO IT I WON’T KILL HIM I WON’T!!!_ ”

He was screaming all this as Sherlock grabbed for the bird, the two of them tussling, the bird’s wings still flapping wildly, its anguished shriekings mixing with John’s.

They wrestled, pressing hard against each other. “ _LET IT GO!_ ” Sherlock grit out.

John heard himself screaming something back, but now sobs were catching in his throat. The rage had turned to grief that hit him like a black wave. He looked down and all he could see was the blood on Sherlock’s pale wrists and face. It was all over the arms of John’s coat and on John’s own lacerated hands.

That was when Sherlock got his hands above John’s and wrapped them around the raven’s throat – a swift turn of his wrists, a cracking _pop_ , and the bird was dead.

“It’s all right,” Sherlock puffed out close to John’s face. “Let it go, John. Let it go…”

John’s sobs wrenched through him again and again, pulling him down into Sherlock’s arms, John’s forehead buried against the parka as he wailed against his chest. Finally, midday sun whitening the heavy sky, John let the raven go.

**

They went back to the house and rinsed the blood off in the shower, both of them ending up warm and ruined and asleep in John’s soft bed.

Afternoon came and went. Without Tom there, the house stayed silent, the radiators hissing as they slept.

Dusk coming, the last of the gauzy white falling across the bed, Sherlock woke to the feeling of John’s body twitching, sweat damp on Sherlock’s back, John’s arms curling more tightly around his waist. John’s breath was fast and hot against one shoulder, hints of sound mixed in.

Sherlock pressed his thigh more firmly against John’s behind him, brushed John’s feet with his own. It was a method that had (in the past at least) worked to rouse John enough to shake him from the nightmare. True to form, John stirred and the tension in his body slowly eased. Sherlock made a soft shushing sound and slid his hand over John’s at his waist.

John lifted his chin from behind him, breathing a long warm breath against his neck. Sherlock felt his eyelids flutter against his skin.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

John shook his head, lips moving over Sherlock’s shoulder, the back of his neck. Sherlock squeezed his hand, pressed back with his hips tentatively, John’s arms pulling Sherlock against him. He felt John’s cock growing hard and shifted, opening his thighs to nestle it more firmly high between his legs. John answered with a catch of breath and by beginning to thrust slowly with his hips.

“Okay?” he whispered.

Sherlock nodded, running his arch up and down John’s calf. “Of course…”

Long minutes of this, the only sound skin moving on sheets and their breathing as it quickened and grew deep. John’s fingers were smoothing up and down Sherlock’s belly, teasing the elastic of his pyjamas’ waist.

“Okay?” he whispered again, holding there.

“Yes,” Sherlock murmured, holding his hand still for a beat. “But I don’t know—“ He swallowed. “It’s…never really come back.”

He felt John nod against him, kiss the soft skin of his throat and lay his bearded cheek there. “That’s really normal, you know.”

Sherlock nodded. He did know, but it didn’t make him feel any less disappointed about it.

“Can I touch you still?” John whispered, and Sherlock answered by putting his hand over John’s and sliding it down. Then he reached back beneath John’s pyjamas and caressed the soft, cool skin of his arse. He turned his head and John found his mouth.

In another few moments their bottoms were down and off. They parted enough to shed the rest of their clothes and toss them away. John’s thrusts had grown more insistent, fluid slicking between Sherlock’s thighs and behind his sac. John moaned.

“How…?” Sherlock breathed as the urgency grew, and John moved him onto his stomach and pressed his weight against his back.

“Like this…” he whispered, his body already drawing tight. “Just like this…”

His hips were a smooth slide of motion. His hands pinned Sherlock’s down by the wrists. Sherlock turned his forehead into the pillow and met him thrust for thrust, pushing back. He felt the first stirring of heat in his belly just as John began to gasp, cock sliding up now, frenulum stroked by the small of Sherlock’s back. His forehead pressed hard into the pillow beside Sherlock’s as he gave a choked shout and came, panting words like _love_ and _god_. Sherlock smiled.

The semen was slick and warm between them as John rolled to the side, reaching between to gather some onto his hand. Then, pulling Sherlock tight against him, he reached his hand around and circled it around Sherlock’s barely hard prick.

“Let me…” John whispered, breathing hard. “Let me, yeah? I’ll stop any time you want…”

*

It was a long time later when Sherlock lay wrecked on his back, spine arched up, thin arms up and crossed over his face. The sounds that were coming from him – half-sobs, half-moans – filled the room as John let Sherlock’s cock slip from his mouth. Then he moved up Sherlock’s body, drawing the blankets over them both as he went.

The one pulse of orgasm John had worked him to had nearly wiped him out. His chest was rising and falling at an almost desperate pace.

“Shhh…” John leaned on one elbow over him and gently untangled his arms. He stroked the sweat from Sherlock’s forehead back into his hair over and over until Sherlock’s body, shaking, began to relax.

“All right?” John whispered, eyes gentle but brow creased in concern. Sherlock nodded and then, looking at him, bit down on his bottom lip. The next breath caught on tears and his eyes filled.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, shaking his head and turning his face away. “I don’t know why I’m—. I’m sorry…“

“Shhhh…I know, love, I know,” he soothed.

Sherlock jerked a nod, trying to stop the tears. He felt ruined and vulnerable and ashamed. John sensed it and shook his head, holding him. He pulled the blankets close around their shoulders, soothing and warm and whispering as the gray gloaming turned to a star-filled night for Christmas Day.

*

Snow in the morning, the smell of bacon and coffee floating up from the kitchen, Tom back from Christmas with his family and bumping around as he cooked. He had music from the ‘40s playing ( _Vera Lynn_ ) and Sherlock listened, drowsing, for a while, feeling tired and sore but more settled, more content.

As he felt John rouse in his arms, he slid his leg between John’s and pressed a long slow kiss to the back of his neck. They lay in their companionable silence, Sherlock ghosting his lips on John’s skin, breathing him in, as John’s thumb brushed a slow arc on Sherlock’s wrist.

“Good morning,” he murmured against John’s temple, brushing a kiss across his beard.

“Mmm, yes,” John replied, his voice thick with sleep. “It is.”

He craned his head to look at Sherlock, taking in his face.

“God, your poor _face_ ,” he said, reaching out and running his thumb over what Sherlock knew would be angry red patches of beard burn on his chin and cheeks. “I’m shaving today.”

“You’ll do _no such thing_ ,” Sherlock replied imperiously, and they both laughed as they kissed. Last night John had rubbed his stubbled cheek up Sherlock’s cock and Sherlock had nearly levitated off the bed, shouting to John that he was _never to shave again._

As they grew quiet, Sherlock reached up and stroked John’s silky, graying hair.

“I like it here,” he said softly, watching the snow out the window.

A pause. “I do, too,” John said.

Sherlock swallowed. “Let’s stay then.”

It frightened him to say it. He’d never been particularly good at being still, staying in one place, especially so far from a city, in the quiet like this. But right now, with all that happened and all it had done to them…it felt right.

John looked back, meeting his uncertain gaze with warm, soft eyes that were calm and reassuring as they looked at him. “All right,” he said.

 

****

 

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (EPILOGUE)


	21. Chapter 21

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE**

**Epilogue**

 

The time between Christmas and New Year’s passed with frequent snow, sleepy and woolen outside, as though the entire world was at rest. During the days, John and Sherlock read by the fire or walked the grounds. 

Tom would be gone after New Year’s except to do shopping for them once a week, but like Sherlock, John had grown to enjoy his company and they would play Backgammon with the loud bawdiness of a pub game, the two of them sipping tea or, if it was later in the evening, the house’s top-shelf scotch. 

Early in the mornings, Sherlock went to check on the colony. Tom cooked for them, excellent meals of simple foods that Sherlock’s palette now preferred – well-cooked meats, richly seasoned soups, warm drinks. John spent time in the kitchen learning to make a few of them, telling Sherlock that he was to continue to eat the dishes when _he_ was the one making them. 

“Yes, dear,” Sherlock said, waving dismissively but gave him a smile and returned to his book.

Most afternoons and much of the nights they spent in Sherlock’s room, twined together or moving against each other in the bed, learning and relearning each other in the warm glow of the fire and the winter light. 

Some things were new between them now. Sherlock’s body lacked stamina on a number of fronts, and often John would be forced to abandon his efforts to bring him off because it exhausted Sherlock so much. For his part, John had a hard time facing Sherlock during sex, and even when they did – Sherlock on top of him, stroking his cock with his own; or Sherlock’s mouth on him, looking up his lean body toward his face – John tended to hide his face behind his arms or turn it away. 

It bothered Sherlock in some fundamental way. He missed John’s eyes on his as they chased the pleasure between them, the open and determined look as he read everything on Sherlock’s face. He missed the shattered, awed look on John’s face when he came. 

But he also knew better than to say anything. John was quick to self-consciousness and to apologize these days.

So one afternoon, Sherlock decided to try something to tease John out.

They’d turned in early and John had brought him to a sleepy, slow climax that had pulsed through him like a heavy wave. 

“All right?” John whispered as he came up his body, fingers trailing over the sweat on Sherlock’s chest. He kissed Sherlock’s chin and cheeks and brow and Sherlock breathed fast and deep against his throat. 

Sherlock nodded. “Oh yes,” he murmured, a dopey smile coming to his face. John was soft and pliable in his arms, except for the hot weight of his cock hard against Sherlock’s hip. 

He brushed John’s lips with his own, murmured, “I’ll be right back,” and moved out of John’s embrace. 

“You okay?” John said, coming up on one elbow as Sherlock stood by the bed. He looked concerned but also uncertain, as though afraid he’d given offense.

Sherlock leaned in close, kissed him once, twice. “Of course,” he said, and gave him a warm smile. 

As they parted, he pointed down at John’s groin. “You’re not to touch that, by the way,” he said and John chuckled (“Yes, sir,” he’d replied) and, the serious mood successfully broken, Sherlock moved off across the room.

Once inside the en suite, he flicked on the light and closed the door. He wet a flannel, cleaned his belly and groin. Then he lay the cloth aside and opened the medicine drawer. 

*

Later, John on his back, head thrown back and turned toward the pillow, Sherlock between his legs, pulling with his mouth.

“Christ, Christ…” John’s moan was low and long. He was close. That’s when Sherlock let John’s cock slip from his mouth and rose up on his knees.

“What’s wro—What?” John stammered, eyes opening and returning to look at him in confusion and concern. He grasped Sherlock’s thigh as it reached his hip. 

“Nothing’s wrong, shhh…” Sherlock whispered, soothing him, and he reached down and guided John’s cock behind his own.

“Sherlock—“ John’s spine arched toward him as he breeched Sherlock’s body, eyes fluttering closed, arms instinctively sliding around Sherlock’s waist. The preparation Sherlock had done in the bath had been just enough, and John slipped inside with ease.

Once seated on John’s trembling thighs, Sherlock leaned over, took John’s head between his hands, cutting off the words _you can’t_ by covering John’s mouth with his own.

“Look at me,” he whispered, giving his hips a tiny thrust. John nearly choked, but he did as Sherlock asked.

Sherlock kissed him, pulled back so he could watch John’s face and gave another thrust.

“Oh God,” John moaned, biting his lip, pleasure etched on his face. He leaned his forehead against Sherlock’s, pushing up.

“Yes…come on…”

Once more. Twice. Then John was coming, the long broken moan panting out of him, his body shaking. His fingers dug in hard enough on Sherlock’s hips to bruise. Sherlock held John’s forehead steady against his, rocking a bit and murmuring to him.

Except when they clenched closed against the pleasure for a shuddering moment, his eyes never left Sherlock’s face.

 

***

Though he knew it was coming, John’s nervousness about Irene and Lily’s visit didn’t lessen a speck from the time Sherlock told him on the 27th until it came on the 30th. 

“I’m sorry, I can see them in town if you’d rather—“ Sherlock put a hand on John’s back by the coffeemaker where he’d frozen visibly at the first mention of them visiting. 

“No, no,” he rushed to say, his voice high and nervous. “It’s fine.”

“I know it’s soon, but they’re off to Florence and I won’t have a chance to see her for awhile,” Sherlock added gently, his tone the same plain, non-apologetic one he’d always adopted where Irene was concerned. John was somehow comforted by the _sameness_ of that. 

He looked up, put a hand on Sherlock’s arm. “I said it’s _fine_. It’ll be good for the two of you to see each other.” He paused, pouring cream in his coffee. “And it will be a good step for me, I think.”

He’d meant it when he said it and he believed it still, but meeting them in the foyer had proven more jarring than he thought.

Tom was in the kitchen making dinner for the four of them and Sherlock was upstairs still getting dressed, so when the doorbell rang, John was left closest to it in the living room. 

“John, could you perhaps…?” Tom’s voice floated down the hallway, and John put down the book he’d been pretending to read and stood, retucking his tucked shirt.

“Yeah, sure,” he called, and went to the door.

They were both on the landing in opulent furs, Irene’s the same lavish mink she’d always worn and Lily in a white fox full-length coat that accentuated her face. They were holding hands as John opened the door and both gave him a smile.

“Hello, John,” Irene said as John stood for a beat, eyes going back and forth between them. Lily angled her head in greeting, her smile going fond.

“Hiya,” John burst out with, remembering himself. “Yeah, come in, come in.” 

Tom had joined them, apron around his waist and drying his just-washed hands. “So sorry, Miss Adler, Miss Fallon,” he fussed, coming forward and helping Lily out of her coat. 

Irene was taking in John’s appearance with a gaze that was unsettlingly similar to Sherlock’s when he was trying to work something out, but when she sensed his discomfort at it, she turned her back to him and opened her coat.

“I’ll take those, John,” Tom said as John slid the coat down from her shoulders and handed it to him. “May I bring the ladies something warm to drink?” 

“Tea would be lovely, Tom,” Irene replied. “Thank you.”

Tom, almost comical with his arms full of 40,000 quid’s worth of pelts, nodded. “Very good,” he said and went off to hang the coats.

Which left John in the hallways with them both now, hands going into his pockets and head going down. He cleared his throat. 

“So…”

But Irene had already moved forward and slid her arms around his neck, pulling him in. A touch coming from her at any time, but particularly now, completely threw him.

“I’m so glad to see you here,” she murmured against his cheek, and he slowly pulled his hands from his pockets and put them around her. The feel of her, the smell of her, was oddly familiar, as was her cheek against his cheek. From somewhere in his mind, the sound of the music they’d danced to played…

“Thank you,” he said, closing his eyes and shutting it out. He turned his attention to the feel of her in his arms, to the smell of this house, to Sherlock’s footsteps as he started down the stairs.

“You don’t have to thank me, John Watson,” Irene murmured. “I said I’d help you if you’d let me. And you did.” 

He gave her a squeeze, holding her tightly against him for a beat. Tears were welling in him. 

As Sherlock got to the bottom of the stairs, he moved out of her embrace, needing the distance as his emotions surged. He nodded and tried to look at her but could not. Sherlock saved him further embarrassment by coming forward to greet Irene.

Lily, perhaps seeing how Irene’s embrace had overwhelmed him, only took both his hands in both of hers when she came forward and stood close.

“Hello,” she said softly, and John swallowed, glancing up from their hands into her beautiful face.

“Hello,” he replied. He could feel the blush of his ears. He began tracing the twined fish tattoo on her hand with his thumb. 

She gave a gentle laugh and stroked the side of his face. “I’d forgotten how you have such a shy face.”

John blushed harder, hands sinking in his pockets again, and Sherlock saved him once more, coming forward to slide an arm around his back and lean in to give Lily a kiss on the cheek.

“Delighted to see you again, Miss Fallon,” Sherlock said gently. “Won’t you both come in?” 

Irene took Lily’s hand and led her into the living room, and Sherlock pulled John closer. His still-damp fringe stood up a bit. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I could…” John reached up, rubbed his forehead, tears rimming his bottom lids. “I could use a minute,” he said softly, his voice hoarse. He watched Sherlock’s brow clench in concern.

“Do you need me to come with you?” he asked.

John shook his head quickly. “No, no, I’ll just…I’ll go help Tom with the tea, yeah? I’ll help bring it in.” 

Sherlock hands gripped, stroked his side. “All right,” he said, letting him go, and John retreated down the hall.

*

Later, after Tom’s fine dinner, they had all returned to the living room, late afternoon light beginning to fade. The fire was new and giving off bright heat. Irene and Lily took the love seat, leaning into each other, and Sherlock and John were on the couch. John had shaken much of his nerves over dinner. A bit of Tom’s scotch, along with the familiarity of Irene and Sherlock’s barbing and Sherlock’s thigh against his had helped to calm him down. 

“May I inquire as to your plans?” Sherlock said, pouring coffee for Irene on the low table that separated them. 

“You may,” Irene replied primly. “I’ll have you know that I have found lawful employment in the service of the British government.”

“Oh, how disappointing,” he sighed as he handed her the cup. “My brother has won you over at last.” John saw the two of them exchange a smile.

“Yes, well, one should take advantage of one’s particular skill sets,” she sniffed. “It gives us London and the Belgravia house as a home base of sorts, and besides: he made me a generous offer that was rather hard to refuse.” 

“As he should,” Sherlock replied, leaning back. Irene leaned back, as well. She seemed content and relaxed. 

“As for the immediate future, we’re on our way to London this evening for a night out and about, and then we’ll catch the plane to Florence the morning of New Year’s Day. We thought a bit of a holiday would be fitting before I begin my new, _virtuous_ life.” 

“And you, Lily?” John asked, forcing himself to speak. Lily had been quietly stroking Irene’s leg and John couldn’t help but glance at her hand. “What are your plans?”

Lily smiled. “A salon in London,” she said, pushing a strand of Irene’s hair behind her ear. 

“Oh, you’re a stylist?” John asked, sipping his coffee. 

“No,” Lily said, eyes on Irene’s. “We’ve bought the place.” Irene smiled and kissed her wrist.

“And may I inquire,” Irene said, breaking her gaze and returning her attention to the two of them, “as to _your_ plans?” 

John was quiet, waiting for Sherlock to speak. Sherlock reached a hand out and placed it on John’s leg. “We’re off to London tomorrow ourselves for New Year’s at Baker Street. But then…” He glanced at John, who nodded. It was all right to say. “We’ve decided to stay here. For the time being, at least.”

John met his eyes, the warmth in them. 

“Lovely,” he heard Irene say. 

 

**

Sherlock had lain down for a nap after Irene and Lily left, and John was in the study on the computer, smiling into the light of Sherlock’s laptop screen.

“Will you look at him!” Chris called, pointing at John’s image on the SEAL’s computer, the faces of Mick, Quince, and Bear leaning into the webcam’s tight frame. “Look at that beard! I’m telling you, John, we get that hair of yours grown out and you’ll officially be a SEAL.” 

John chuckled tiredly, putting up his hands in surrender. “No, no,” he said, “I’m leaving all that fun to you blokes from here on out. ‘Younger, better men,’ as they say.”

“Younger maybe,” Mick replied, meeting John’s eyes from the grainy Skype image. “Not better.” 

The two of them had spoken much when he was in Landstahl when John had come back to himself a bit. Mick had told John about the raid on Moriarty’s. He’d talked to him about the three terrible weeks as a prisoner of the Taliban. He’d been the one to tell John that Iarla was gone, as well. Since then, they’d emailed off and on. John was pleased to call him a friend.

“Ta,” John said, pleased at the compliment, then cleared his throat as his tenuous control on his emotions gave a little slip. “You all off then?” 

“Yeah,” Mick said, feigning boredom. “It’s a new place this time, which is good. If I never see desert again, it’ll be too soon.” 

“That’s the fucking truth,” Quince growled. “Christ. I’ll be digging sand out my ass until I retire.”

“Anyway,” Mick continued. “We wanted to check in and see how you were before we headed out.”

John nodded. “I’m…glad. I’m glad you did. I hope it’s a short trip.” He looked at each of them, going quiet for a beat. “Listen…what you all did for me—“

“It’s what you do for your Team,” Chris interrupted, but his voice was kind. “You don’t have to thank us. Besides, you’d have done the same for any of us.”

“Hell yeah,” Bear said, giving John a wink. With everything that had happened, John had nearly forgotten he’d taken a bullet in the ass dragging Bear off to cover. It felt like a lifetime ago. His emotions gave another slip and he blinked, looking to the side.

“You’re all right,” Chris said gently. The others nodded, giving him a beat to collect himself.

John straightened his back, looked at their familiar faces, so much like other men he’d served with in other times. Something in him that had been sleeping stirred and began to wake.

“Yes,” John said, looking at them all in turn, his eyes shining. “I think I am.”

**

 

Christmas had been a miserable affair for Greg Lestrade, lonely without even the awkward debacle of the usual 221B Christmas Eve gathering to give it some cheer. He’d spent the day asleep, rising only to watch _Elf_ and heat himself up some leftover Thai. 

So by the morning of New Year’s Eve, he was deep in a doldrums that even the promise of Mrs. Hudson’s curiously strong punch and fine cake couldn’t break. It didn’t help that when he looked in the bathroom mirror (as he was doing now), all he saw was unruly salt-and-pepper hair going mostly to salt and scarring beneath his eye and across his nose that was clearly going to remain much more noticeable than they said. 

His chest had thinned out with all the time recuperating, he noted.

_Jesus, even my bloody chest hair is gray…_

He sighed, reached for his undershirt and pulled it on. He flicked off the bathroom light as he went back to his flat’s main room, finding the coffee cup he’d lost track of just as he heard the delicate knock on the door.

Molly had checked on him a few times, brought him a few frankly horrible cakes that he’d eaten because she’d seemed to pleased to have given the recipes a try. _Probably her,_ he thought, going to spy hole and looking out.  
 _What the--?_

Irene Adler and her girlfriend Lily standing there with their faces nearly touching. Then Irene held up a hand, letting a pair of handcuffs dangle down. She cocked mischievous eyebrow at him and Lestrade’s eyes got so wide they nearly bugged out.

He opened the door and stared. “Irene, Lily,” he finally said. 

“Lestrade,” Irene said, and she and Lily came in the flat, leaving Lestrade in a befuddling miasma of very, very good perfumes. He closed the door.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he said, feeling warmth stirring in his gut and his throat go tight. The women were coming out of their mink coats and laying them on his frankly natty-looking couch. 

“Funny you should put it just that way,” Irene said, and Lily turned to him and smiled. Irene was wearing a black dress that buttoned up the back and, as Lestrade watched, dumbfounded, Lily began to undo the buttons, the top of the dress opening up.

“What…what are you doing?” he asked, but as the dress slipped, this remarkably sexy corset was _there_ for his eyes and damn it all if he wasn’t getting hard.

“I would think it’s pretty self-explanatory, Detective Inspector,” Irene said, stepping out of the dress, garters and fishnet black stockings and the corset all that was left. She picked up the handcuffs she’d set down to undress again. Lily was stripping as well, the musky smell of pheromones joining the perfumes’ scent now, and her body was…well…

_Bloody **hell** …_

“But—“ The one part of his brain not completely taken with their bodies and the look Irene was giving him (and, to be honest, the sudden resurrection of his dick) putting up one more protest.

But Lily had curled into Irene and was kissing her, their tongues sliding between their lips in a frankly _visual_ delight, and whatever Lestrade was going to say just died.

“Bedroom this way?” Irene asked, glancing down the hallway and he nodded, stupefied. Then the two women put their arms around each other’s thin waists and moved that way.

_Oh Christ, the room’s a bloody wreck…_

Lily went in first, Irene lingering at the door and looking at him. “Coming, Lestrade?” Then she gave a cattish smile. “What am I saying? _Of course_ you are. And more than once if I get my way.” 

Thankfully, enough blood left Lestrade’s groin at that point to allow his feet to start moving down the hall.

*

Much later, covers a tangle around the three of them and Lily asleep on her side facing the wall, Lestrade lay with Irene curled against his side, her head on his chest. She was stroking the patch of hair at the center of his chest as he twirled a strand of her long hair between two fingers, and he couldn’t help it – he pulled her close against him like a lover would.

“I’ve never felt anything like that before,” he murmured into her hair. “Never.”

“Something you could get used to, I take it?” she replied softly, amusement in her voice.

He swallowed. “I don’t know,” he said tentatively. “Can I?”

She leaned up, balancing her chin on her crossed forearms and regarding him with her big eyes. “Now and then, I think so,” she replied. “As long as Lily’s always with us and you keep your expectations in check.” 

_Lily being involved, now there’s a hardship,_ he thought, but the other troubled him a bit.

“I’m not allowed to have feelings for you then?” he asked softly. 

She reached up and stroked his cheek. “Oh, I suppose you can,” she said, feigning boredom, but there was something in her eyes that told him she liked the idea.

“I thought you were gay,” he whispered, caressing her corset’s back. The stockings and garters were littering his floor with his shirt and jeans and the rest of this week’s unfolded laundry strewn about. The handcuffs were still hooked around the top bar of headboard.

She shrugged. “I am,” she said, moving up his body to touch her lips to his. “But Lily’s bi and happier with a bit of both, and well…I like you. And I like this.” 

He made a sound of agreement in his throat and long moments passed as they kissed. 

“Do you think you could take this off for me?” he asked, fingering the corset’s edge.

“I’d rather not,” she whispered, shaking her head. The vulnerability she was trying to hide tugged at him.

“I know you’ve been hurt,” he said, cradling her ribs. “I don’t care what it looks like. You’re fucking beautiful and I just want to see you, _all_ of you…touch your skin.” Blood was moving south in him again and Irene smiled as she felt him.

“We’ll see,” she said, stretching luxuriously as she rose up on her knees, straddled his hips, and took him back in. 

**

New Year’s Eve afternoon and Mycroft Holmes’ dark sedan pulled up in front of the Sussex house, his driver handing him the satchel in which two boxes – one large and one small – had been carefully placed. 

“Thank you, William,” he said, taking it and his umbrella and going toward the house. And though he’d been visiting this house since, well, since he was born, he rang the doorbell now and waited for Tom to let him in.

“Mr. Holmes,” Tom said, smiling his kind smile. “Won’t you come in? The gents are in the living room and are expecting you.” 

“Thank you, Tom,” Mycroft replied. The man had been invaluable, both in his care of Sherlock and later John and in his passing information on their conditions to him. Tom ushered him to the doorway to the living room.

Sherlock and John were sitting facing each other as they always were, it seemed, John closing a newspaper and laying it down as Sherlock glanced up from his book. The only thing that was different from a morning at Baker Street was that both were dressed in suits (Sherlock tieless _of course_ ) in preparation for their return to London for the party that night.

“Hello, Mycroft,” Sherlock said without his usual snoot. It sounded almost warm and it made Mycroft smile a bit.

“Sherlock,” he replied, angling his head toward him. “John.”

Meanwhile, John had stood and Mycroft regarded him carefully to see how he was reacting to seeing him for the first time since that terrible day. Sherlock was watching him surreptitiously, as well.

This was where the recovery from Moriarty’s brainwashing would be put to the test, Mycroft knew. This was when they would know if the programming had been broken enough that John would not be haunted by it as he stood in the same room with his “mark.” 

And while Mycroft had no fears of John actually hurting him, he did not want his presence to trigger some sort of relapse in John’s ability to stay grounded in his surroundings or to maintain his emotional control. 

But there was no reason to worry. John looked embarrassed, if anything, in his neatly trimmed beard and dark, well-tailored suit and red tie. He came forward immediately, extending a hand. 

“Mycroft,” he said, his voice a bit hoarse. “It’s good to see you again.”

“And you, John,” Mycroft said, shaking his hand. “You are looking very, very well.”

“Thank you,” John said, looking into Mycroft’s eyes with difficulty but managing it. “You are, as well.”

Sherlock stood, buttoning his new jacket at his waist. Mycroft was glad to see that he’d put on a tiny bit of weight. 

“You’re looking more fit as well, brother,” he said as Sherlock came forward and, to his surprise, also extended his hand. Mycroft gave it a squeeze as they shook.

“So how is life in our brave new world?” Sherlock asked, gesturing for Mycroft to sit. He did, setting the bag with the packages next to him on the floor. 

“An excellent way to describe what we’re dealing with,” Mycroft said as the two men sat across from him. “Some initial instability that was a bit worrying, mostly from our Middle Eastern and North Korean friends…”

“I imagine so,” Sherlock said.

“But,” he continued, hands on his knees. “Everyone has behaved. All parties are aware that they are better off without Moriarty’s control in the end, so it’s been just a question of keeping things stable as we help guide the filling of the power vacuum in some spheres.”

John nodded, poised on the edge of the couch, his elbows on his knees. He looked across at Mycroft uncertainly. Sherlock reached over and put a hand on his back.

“All right?” he asked softly, and John sat up more straight, Mycroft’s brow creasing down. 

“Yeah, of course,” John replied, nodding, and glancing at Mycroft again. “It’s just…it’s strange to see you, is all. Strange—“ He touched his temple, giving a strained smile and looking to the side. 

“I imagine so,” Mycroft said softly. “I understand my presence may cause you distress for some time.”

“I’m sorry,” John said, his voice strained. “I—“ He began to push his hand roughly through his hair in a gesture that Mycroft could tell caused Sherlock concern. The two brothers exchanged a look and Sherlock gave a tiny shake of his head. 

“Well,” Mycroft said, his voice gentle as he put his hands on his knees. “Dr. Gilpin said to keep the first few times we saw one another brief, so I will do just that. But I did want to wish you both a belated Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year, as well as to bring these.” 

Sherlock leaned forward and took the larger, flat box, and John took the heavy smaller one, the gifts acting as just the right distraction to snap John back to the here and now.

“I didn’t have them wrapped to forego the awkward tearing of paper and needless gratification delay,” Mycroft sniffed, waving at them both.

John opened his first, tilting the heavy box open and looking inside. He held still for a moment, then drew the handgun out. 

“Sig Sauer P226-9-Navy,” Mycroft said, nodding toward the snub black nose and heavy grip. “The one used by the SEALS, I’m told.” 

John ran his finger over the white anchor etched near the barrel, weighing the gun in his hand. “These are…this is the best combat handgun ever made,” he said, awed a bit.

“Yes,” Mycroft said patiently. “And I know yours has gone missing along the way, so…the clips and the license to carry it are in the case.”

The trust it showed for Mycroft to bring this to him now was not lost on John or on Sherlock, Mycroft could tell. Sherlock gave Mycroft a grateful look and let his hand trail down John’s back. 

“Thank you,” John managed, and he looked in Mycroft’s face. “Thank you for this.” 

Mycroft smiled. “No, thank _you_ , John. For so many things.” 

John returned the smile, then set the Sig back in the box. “Your turn,” he said to Sherlock, tapping the box, and Sherlock moved to the edge of the couch and set the box in his lap, opening it. 

A violin case, very old from the looks of it, but very well kept. Mycroft watched him find the plaque laid into it and read it. 

“It’s ‘The Kreutzer,’” Sherlock breathed, running his finger along the engraving. “From 1731. It was just at auction, I’d read, projected to go for—“

“Ten million, U.S., yes,” Mycroft finished, and John swore, looking down at the case as though he should put some distance between him and it. “The bidding was a bugger, I’ll have you know. So do take good care of this one.” 

Sherlock looked at him, swallowed. “Of course, yes.” He creaked open the case, the wood the color of dark honey, the scroll at the top carved as finely as anything Mycroft had ever seen. 

Sherlock was still stunned as he stood, giving the strings an experimental pluck. The tuning pegs creaked as he turned them. Then he lifted out the bow, looking down at the instrument for a beat before meeting his brother’s fond look.

“Thank you,” he said, and the emotion on Sherlock’s face and his voice made something ( _emotion?_ ) churn in Mycroft’s chest. 

“You’re very welcome,” he said softly. “Now I’d very much like to hear you play before you need to catch your train.” 

*

That was the image Mycroft was left with as the black car turned back onto the main road from the house: John on the couch, eyes bright and face etched with awe as Sherlock stood before the fireplace, back straight, head tilted into the Strad as though the two of them had already become one thing. 

And the music, such music was coming from them...

He looked at the countryside, so familiar but somehow so changed, streaming by. 

Such great men, he decided. Such _good_ men, both of them now. And, perhaps most importantly, Mycroft Holmes realized, men with a hard-worn life together to live out how they wished.

 

END 

 

 

 

Many many thanks to so many people, especially Cindy C. for her excellent research on viruses and Laura L. for coming in to beta for the final 10 chapters or so. Also to R. for reading everything so carefully as I went and making sure I kept track of everything! Alasse_mirimiel, Ruth, rifleman_s, anyrei, and so many of you read along diligently and sent such lovely feedback. It was really great to know people were reading and still interested in the story, despite the long breaks, and I thank you everyone who wrote to me and apologize if I missed responding here and there. Please know that I read all of them and was very moved by what you had to say.  
All the best to you all. :-)  
Todesfuge


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